According to a report in Politico, Bob Novak appears to have attempted to flee the scene of the crime after smashing into a pedestrian with his Corvette (how not surprising) in downtown Washington D.C. today. 

Novak may well have escaped if not for the valiant efforts of a cyclist who witnessed the accident and pursued Novak's car, eventually stopping his bike in front of Novak in order to prevent him from continuing his attempts to drive away. 

Novak then apparently lied to reporters on the scene, telling them that he didn't know he hit the pedestrian, who the bicyclist described as "splayed" on the windshield of Novak's Corvette.

Gives new meaning to Rush Limbaugh's term, the drive-by media.  I guess for Conservatives, it's the hit-and-run media.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11985.html

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who
was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he
witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black
Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is
sort of splayed onto the windshield.”



Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk"
signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that
Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “The car is
speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a
pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said. 

He said he chased Novak a half block down K Street, finally caught
up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and
called 911. Traffic immediately backed up, horns blared and commuters
finally went into reverse to allow Novak to pull over.



Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps
trying to go.” He said he vaguely recognized the longtime political
reporter and columnist as a Washington celebrity but could not
precisely place him. 



Finally, Bono said, Novak put his head out the window of his car and
motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a
pedestrian and just drive away. He quoted Novak as responding:  “I
didn’t see him there.”

A concierge at 1700 K Street said that she saw a bicyclist yelling and walked outside to see what the commotion was about.

"This guy hit somebody and he won't stop so I'm going to stay here
until the police come," Aleta Petty quoted Bono as saying, as he stood
in K Street, blocking traffic.

D.C. police confirmed that there was an accident at 18th and K
streets NW at approximately 10 a.m. involving a black Corvette
convertible and that the driver was a white male.

The intersection is in the hub of Washington’s business district and
is filled with pedestrians who work in the law firms and lobby shops
that line the corridor.


Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.


In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.


“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before
speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable
Source column.


Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I
really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country,
all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but
as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

The Evans-Novak Political Report lists some potential VP choices for Barack Obama, and speculation is mounting that Obama will pick in the 10 days after he returns from his trip and before the Beijing Olympics.  I have some different views to share, and I'd love to hear what others think as well.  Who should he pick and why?

Right now, my top four choices, in no particular order, are Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and John Edwards.  All four are familiar with the process and have been vetted by running themselves, so gaffes and blunders are hopefully less likely.  They are all very solid progressives, some better on some issues than others (Dodd on FISA, Edwards on poverty and trade, Richardson on energy, Biden on foreign policy, etc.). 

Biden, Richardson, and Dodd all have foreign policy experience.  Richardson and Edwards help reinforce Obama's message of change and can run as D.C. outsiders.  Richardson has executive and diplomatic experience and may help with the Western and Hispanic vote. 

I do think age is potentially a factor.  None of them are too old to run for VP right now, but as Dodd is 64 and Biden is 65, they might be too old to run for president themselves after serving as VP.  That has some potential upside as well, however, as it may align their interests better with Obama, without requiring them to chart their own paths in order to run in 2016.  Richardson is 60, and Edwards is 55, so they would not be too old to run in 2016.  (I realize this is getting ahead of ourselves to some degree.)

I would love to see him pick Claire McCaskill, but I think her Senate seat is too important.  I don't know enough about Janet Napolitano or Kathleen Sebelius to have an informed opinion.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I don't want Obama to pick a VP who is more conservative or less experienced than he is.  I don't think that will help him in the White House, as that person could potentially undermine some of the progressive parts of Obama's agenda, and I doubt it will really help him much in the campaign. 

Here is a ridiculously disgusting quote, supposedly a joke, from John McCain.  Please share this "joke" with Hillary Clinton supporters who may briefly consider supporting John McCain and ask them to consider what sort of a person tells such a joke:

<blockquote>Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.</blockquote>

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html

Yup, that's what John McCain said about poor Chelsea back in 1998, when she was only 18 years old.  It's so outrageously awful and so clearly beyond the pale that it makes Greg Sargent's effort to catalog unfair coverage of Hillary during the 2008 campaign look like an exercise in warm-fuzziness! 

I hope everyone can try to help spread this article around the blogosphere.  It was reported by David Corn at the time in Salon, and McCain did not deny it and apologized for it, including to Maureen Dowd in the N.Y. Times.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E6DD173CF932A15755C0A96E958260

That's what pure, unadulterated and awful sexist garbage McCain used to spew.  How comfortable do Hilllary's supporters feel about that?

As Dowd reported, things have changed little since then:

<blockquote>He is so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug. ''It's like a return to the Kennedy era,'' said one magazine editor. ''He makes a gaffe, and we look the other way.''

...

''This is the bad boy,'' he said in a phone interview. ''It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?''

He said the Senator who spoke just before he did to the Republican fat cats made a tasteless joke about Viagra. ''So I got up and said, 'You think that was a tasteless joke? Listen to this one.' The minute it came out of my mouth, I thought, 'Oh no, this is a terrible mistake.' ''

But, he added, defensively, ''I will always maintain a sense of humor. Life is too short not to.''

Life is also too short for making the President's daughter the target of a junky, misogynistic crack masquerading as humor.

Mr. McCain said he wrote a letter of abject apology to the President. That's good politics. But where's the letter to Janet Reno? He says he doesn't think that such a letter is necessary. </blockquote>

I'm starting to think Bill Richardson is the best choice for Barack Obama to pick as VP.  I really like John Edwards, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and other folks who have been mentioned recently, but there are just so many positives to picking Bill Richardson. 

Here are 10 reasons off the top of my head favoring Richardson:

1. Serious foreign policy credentials and credibility.

2. He can say that he's negotiated with dictators and the Earth didn't melt.

2. Governor not a Congressman (although a former Congressman).

3. From a swing state.

4. From the important Mountain West region.

5. Helps with Hispanic voters.

6. Optimistic and upbeat campaigner.

7. Hopefully well vetted from his presidential campaign.

8. New face (for the public), so helps reinforce Obama's message of CHANGE.

9. First Hispanic VP, so reinforces how HISTORIC the Dem ticket is.

10. Stood up to Clintons and endorsed Obama!

Hell Has Officially Frozen Over   [Byron York]

It caught my eye as a flash on Brit Hume a few moments ago, but here is a photo from Hillary Clinton's visit today to the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In this picture, she is seen talking to none other than Richard Mellon Scaife, the owner of the paper and the man who once said that the death of Vincent Foster was the "Rosetta stone" of the Bill Clinton administration. (He also funded the so-called "Arkansas Project" at The American Spectator.) We've heard reports of a rapprochement between Scaife and the Clintons of late, and the Pennsylvania primary is fast approaching, but this is still a pretty striking picture.

The picture is right here: 

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDA2YTFkMmUxNjliNDIzODU1MWQxZmY1MjdiMDE0OGM=

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it.  It does bring to mind the fact that Rupert Murdoch, owner of right-wing media outlets Fox News, the New York Post, and now the Wall Street Journal (op-ed is far right, we'll see what happens to news), hosted a fundraiser for her Senate campaign. 

The links in this piece will give you some background on Scaife, who is probably the one person single-handedly responsible for the absolutely worst elements of American political life through his donations to bogus "conservative" media outlets and think tanks, including the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review vanity press and The American Spectator.  He's the anti-Obama, the opposite of everything Obama talks about and stands for.  Scaife is constantly injecting more BS and venom into our politics, doing whatever he can to increase ignorance and partisanship.

What the hell is Clinton doing meeting with reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review? The Tribune-Review is a money-losing fringe publication published by Richard Mellon Scaife, a bilious and wealthy crank who spent the 1990s manufacturing vile innuendo about the Clintons. If the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" on which first lady Hillary Clinton famously blamed her troubles can be said to exist, its chairman and chief executive officer was Scaife. Scaife gave the American Spectator $2.3 million to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton, and he used the Tribune-Review to spread, among other things, the reprehensible allegation that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster, a clinically depressed deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in 1993. Scaife was quoted more than once calling Foster's death "the Rosetta stone to the Clinton administration," adding in an interview with George magazine, "Once you solve that one mystery, you'll know everything that's going on or went on—I think there's been a massive coverup. … Listen, [Bill Clinton] can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him. … God, there must be 60 people who have died mysteriously."

...

For whatever reason, Scaife decided last summer to extend the hand of friendship to Bill Clinton, whose post-presidency he professes to admire. Perhaps Scaife was looking to burnish his image with the judge then presiding over his extremely nasty divorce. Maybe he wanted to get even with the former Mrs. Scaife, who apparently prefers Obama. (She gave Obama's campaign $2,300 in February.) Bill Clinton overcame whatever scruples he might harbor to raise money for his foundation. Hillary Clinton is now doing the same in the interest of her candidacy. She is free, of course, to associate with whomever she pleases. But she is not free, while paddling the sewers with Scaife, to judge Obama publicly for belonging to Wright's church. Compared with Scaife, Wright is St. Francis of Assisi. The only possible reason why any Pennsylvanian might judge Wright more harshly than Scaife is that Scaife is white and Wright is black. That must be obvious even to Hillary as she cozies up to this repulsive billionaire.

http://www.slate.com/id/2187473/

I'm not sure why this news hasn't hit harder now that Hillary has decided to launch into a new round of Holy Wars.

While in Washington during the Clinton administration, Hillary joined a right-wing Christianist group called "The Family."  She has been a member ever since:

There’s a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she’s a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that “through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the “Fellowship,” aka The Family. But it won’t be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/2008/03/hillarys-nasty.html

Ehrenreich follows up in the comments:

This was not a premeditated hit on Hillary, nor is it gossip or a joke. I happened to have been reading a manuscript of Jeff Sharlet's book, The Family, because he sent it to me for a blurb. Late last week, when the business about Obama's pastor broke out, I had just gotten to Sharlet's section on Hillary's involvement with the Family. Already creeped out by Sharlet's account of the Family, I decided I had to blog about this.

As does the author of the book and MoJo piece, Jeff Sharlet:

What's odd about accusations that this is conspiratorial is that it's based almost entirely on the public record. We didn't need to meet anyone in a parking garage at midnight to find out that Hillary considers Doug Coe a "genuinely loving spiritual mentor"; she writes that in Living History. And if you don't want to take my word for Doug Coe's Hitler talk, there are sermons available online and 600 boxes of documents rife with such material available to the public in Collection 459 of the Billy Graham Center Archives, not an institution known for conspiracy theories or hostility to religion.

The fact is, The Family is NOT a conspiracy, it's bad theology. And challenging Hillary's association with this authoritarian interpretation of the gospel can hardly be considered anti-religious when The Family itself mocks religion as suitable for the masses but useless for God's anointed, who, they argue, are given special teachings direct from God.

And making the case that Barbara is drawing on an unsourced hit piece is really absurd. Mother Jones, like all decent magazines, does extensive fact checking -- you don't get to declare something without proof. The piece wasn't a hit piece, either. What's my evidence? I actually voted for Hillary. I've changed my mind since, but I voted for her knowing about her affiliations, worried about her affiliations, because I thought her health care plan was better and that Obama was no different on other issues. I now think I was wrong, and I'll freely admit that I've never been a fan of hers, but I can hardly be accused of pursuing an Obama agenda when I actually voted for her over Obama.

I raised the questions I did because they are there: because Hillary asks us to take her religion seriously as a part of her candidacy. Ok, so let's do so. I've tried to do that, and so has Barbara. Would that Hillary's defenders do as much as to take their candidate at her word.

Posted by: Jeff Sharlet | March 20, 2008 at 05:17 PM

Be sure to read the original article in Mother Jones in its entirety:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

According to the NYT, the case began when Spitzer's bank filed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), which are forms that banks file with the IRS following certain supposedly suspicious activity by their customers.  It's illegal to leak the contents of SARs. 

There, in the Hauppauge offices of the Internal Revenue Service, investigators conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks found several unusual movements of cash involving the governor of New York, several officials said.

The investigators working out of the three-story office building, which faces Veterans Highway, typically review such reports, the officials said. But this was not typical: transactions by a governor who appeared to be trying to conceal the source, destination or purpose of the movement of thousands of dollars in cash, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The money ended up in the bank accounts of what appeared to be shell companies, corporations that essentially had no real business.

The transactions, officials said, suggested possible financial crimes — maybe bribery, political corruption, or something inappropriate involving campaign finance. Prostitution, they said, was the furthest thing from the minds of the investigators.

Soon, the I.R.S. agents, from the agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, were working with F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors from Manhattan who specialize in political corruption.

The inquiry, like many such investigations, was a delicate one. Because the focus was a high-ranking government official, prosecutors were required to seek the approval of the United States attorney general to proceed. Once they secured that permission, the investigation moved forward.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/nyregion/11inquire.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

The law enforcement officials certainly should not be leaking the entire case to the press. That's a very bad sign of misconduct.  But leaking the content of SARs is very clearly illegal.

More on SARs here:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=154555,00.html
Suspicious Activity Reports

Money Services Businesses Can Help Fight Money Laundering

Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are one of the government’s main weapons in the battle against money laundering and other financial crimes since these reports generate leads that law enforcement agencies use to initiate money laundering investigations. Many individuals launder money to conceal illegal activity, such as drug trafficking, health insurance fraud, tax evasion, and even terrorism. It fuels criminal conduct, allowing drug dealers, smugglers, terrorists, arms dealers, and tax evaders to maintain control over their proceeds and ultimately to provide a legitimate cover for their sources of income. Law enforcement officials estimate that such individuals yearly launder 1 to 2 trillion dollars worldwide through different types of financial institutions and businesses.

One of the types of financial institutions money launderers use are the Money Services Businesses (MSBs) that issue, sell or redeem traveler’s checks or money orders, transmit money, or exchange currency. Since they are targets for money launderers, the Bank Secrecy Act requires MSBs to file suspicious activity reports with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Check cashers and sellers and redeemers of stored value are not required to, but may voluntarily file a SAR.

When to File a SAR

An MSB must file a SAR when it knows or suspects that:

The funds come from illegal activity or disguise funds from illegal activity;
The transaction is structured to evade BSA requirements or appears to serve no known business or apparent lawful purpose; or,
The MSB is being used to facilitate criminal activity.
There are two different dollar thresholds that require a SAR. They depend on the stage of discovery and the type of transaction involved. A $2,000 threshold applies if a customer is conducting or attempting to conduct a transaction(s) that aggregates to $2,000 or more. A threshold of $5,000 applies for transactions identified by issuers of money orders or traveler’s checks from a review of clearance records. These thresholds are known as the $2,000 front door/$5,000 back door rule. The $2,000 front door transactions are face-to-face with the customer. The $5,000 rule applies after the records have been processed at the issuer level, thus the back door.

Bill Foster is running in a special election for Denny Hastert's former seat in the House of Representatives.  He's already worked as a successful small businessman and a scientist who worked as a physicist at Fermilab.

http://www.foster08.com/2007/12/meet_bill_foste.html

He's running against Jim Oberweis, a wealthy and conservative Republican best known for running terrifically ugly attack ads in losing races (including GOP Senate primary where the winner faced Barack Obama).

Obama has endorsed Bill Foster, and Foster is running an ad with Obama in it:

http://www.foster08.com/2008/03/obama_says_bill_2.html

With your help, Foster can keep running that ad through the election, which is coming up THIS SATURDAY, MARCH 8.

Donate to Bill Foster: 

https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/contribution.aspx?X=sP0B%2bcSHxC4idypEWxZ%2b0Q%3d%3d

Please recommend this post so others will see it and donate as well!

We have all now become familiar with the distinction between superdelegates, who are elected officials and Democratic party leaders, and elected delegates, who are the delegates chosen by each state (usually by congressional district). 

Before the primaries go any further, we must pressure the Superdelegates to do one of three things: 

1. ENDORSE NOW so all Dems know where they stand before the primaries end or

2. pledge to abide by the outcome of the Democratic primaries and caucuses by supporting the candidate with the MOST ELECTED DELEGATES or

3. pledge to abide by the outcome of the Democratic primaries and caucuses by supporting THE CANDIDATE WHO WINS THEIR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. 

This is the Democratic party, but it should also be a small-d democratic party.  One in which democratic votes should determine the nomination for the presidency, not behind-the-scenes dealmaking. 

I am sure that the vast majority our superdelegates are folks who value fairness and transparency, but many are politicians, a group known to engage in horsetrading, and who knows what sort of promises a superdelegate could extract in exchange for a vote for the nomination if the nomination is still up for grabs after all of the primaries have taken place (I believe the last in PA on April 22). 

We don't want our new nominee to be embarrassed by stories of promises extracted and compromises required to become our party's nominee. 

If after the primaries are over the superdelegates then go on to choose our nominee free of any constraints, I believe that would be disastrous for our party.  Many Democrats who voted for the other candidate will be greatly discouraged, quite possibly harming our party in the general election.

There are definitely other ways we could go about it, but I believe this way is fair to our two great candidates (full disclosure:  I support Obama) and fair to us, the voters of the Democratic party.

Let's organize.  Put your suggestions in the comments.

I found these lists of pledged and unpledged superdelegates that are pretty current but may need to be updated a bit.

List of pledged superdelegates: 

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html

List of unpledged superdelegates:

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegates-who-havent-endorsed.html