Sydney Morning Herald Covers Larry Sinclair /Barack Obama Drug and Sex Story

Barack Obama, Larry Sinclair, National Press Club

Obama smear campaign moves to press club

Anne Davies in Washington

June 18, 2008

THE Washington media are about to be consumed by a new debate: how much attention they should give scandalous claims about Barack Obama when the man making them appears at the National Press Club today.

Larry Sinclair, from Minnesota, became famous – or infamous – when he posted a YouTube video last year alleging he and Senator Obama used cocaine together and participated in homosexual acts in 1999.

According to Mr Sinclair, the liaison occurred in the back of a limo while the presumptive Democratic nominee was in the Illinois Senate, but beyond that, Mr Sinclair has been vague about dates and locations.

There is no proof of the allegations and when Mr Sinclair offered to take a polygraph test last year, he failed it. It’s also instructive that none of Senator Obama’s opponents has embraced his claims.

But now Mr Sinclair has booked a conference room at the National Press Club, the premier venue for press conferences in Washington, and he plans to air the allegations again.

The mainstream media are unsure about how to treat his claims and the move to host him at the National Press Club has outraged liberal websites, which have moved well beyond reportage to activism. Firedoglake.com, edited by Jane Hamsher, has assembled an online petition signed by nearly 11,500 people and has delivered it to the club, urging it to check the facts of Mr Sinclair’s story before giving him the stage.

– Former vice-president Al Gore offered a vigorous endorsement of Senator Obama on Monday and urged Democrats to keep in mind the consequences of not taking the general election with grave seriousness.

The two strode onto the stage arm in arm to thundering applause from a crowd of nearly 20,000 people in Detroit. As Mr Gore ticked through a long list of challenges facing the nation, he hailed Obama as “clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America”.

with The New York Times

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/06/17/1213468422063.html

Willie Randolph Fired By New York Mets In The Middle Of The California Night

New York Mets, Willie Randolph

Man In The Middle

New York Mets fire manager Willie Randolph


ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Willie Randolph is out as manager of the New York Mets, fired 2 1/2 months into a disappointing season that has followed the team’s colossal collapse last September.

Bench coach Jerry Manuel takes over on an interim basis for Randolph, who led the Mets to within one win of the 2006 World Series. They got off to a strong start again last year but plummeted down the stretch and have been unable to rebound.

A preseason favorite to win the NL pennant, the $138 million Mets (34-35) had won two in a row when Randolph was let go early Tuesday morning — making him the first major league manager to get fired this season.

Pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto also were fired in an enormous overhaul that came at a stunning time — about two hours after New York’s 9-6 victory at the Los Angeles Angels.

Ken Oberkfell, the club’s manager at Triple-A New Orleans, and Dan Warthen, pitching coach for the Zephyrs, will join the major league staff along with Luis Aguayo, a Mets field coordinator.

It was a frustrating end for the 53-year-old Randolph, who was set to be an NL coach at the All-Star game at Yankee Stadium next month.

Signed through the 2009 season, Randolph won’t be able to move with the Mets into new Citi Field next year, either.

Randolph was known for his exceptionally steady play as a six-time All-Star second baseman and even-keel demeanor as a coach with the Yankees.

Yet Randolph’s time in charge of the Mets was marked by highs and lows from the get-go.

Hired by new general manager Omar Minaya to replace Art Howe for the 2005 season, Randolph lost his first five games as a major league manager, then won the next six.

He nearly guided the Mets into the 2006 World Series, losing Game 7 of the NLCS to St. Louis on Yadier Molina’s tiebreaking home run in the ninth inning.

The Mets and their fans were convinced 2007 would be their year. Poised for a big run, what followed was one of the biggest collapses in baseball history: Leading the NL East by seven games on Sept. 12, they lost 12 of their last 17 and missed the playoffs as Philadelphia rallied to win the division title.

Several times, Randolph tried to separate last season’s failure and this season’s struggle.

“I really felt we put last year behind us,” he said last month. “Any pressure we feel is because of staying in the mix and not reverting back to last year. I don’t sense that at all. No one ever talks about it, no one ever brings it up, so if we are looking a little like we were last year, there’s no correlation.”

Many Mets watchers, however, felt there was a carry-over effect. Injuries to Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou and Ryan Church, another down year by Carlos Delgado and a sudden slump by closer Billy Wagner didn’t help.

With each stretch of inconsistent play, chants of “Fire Willie!” grew louder at Shea Stadium and on New York’s sports talk radio station.

Despite a $138 million payroll, the highest in the National League, and the offseason addition of ace pitcher Johan Santana, the Mets never found their groove. Even when things briefly went their way, Randolph caused trouble.

Coming off an uplifting, two-game sweep at Yankee Stadium in mid-May, the first black manager in team history created a stir by suggesting in a newspaper interview that he was portrayed on Mets broadcasts differently than a white manager might be.

Randolph brought up the race issue as he detailed the way he’s been shown by SNY, the team’s TV network.

“Is it racial?” Randolph was quoted. “Huh? It smells a little bit. … I don’t know how to put my finger on it, but I think there’s something there.”

A couple of days later, Randolph apologized to Mets ownership, SNY and his players “for the unnecessary distraction” he’d created.

Late last month, Randolph got a temporary reprieve when he met with ownership.

“Willie’s job was never in danger going into this meeting,” Minaya said after the session. “Willie has my support. He has the support of our ownership. … There is no limbo period. Willie is the manager.”

But no promises for the future were made.

Raised in Brooklyn, Randolph enjoyed many of his favorite and finest moments in the Bronx.

He played for the Yankees from 1976-88 and was a member of two World Series championship teams.

Surrounded by stars Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson, characters Sparky Lyle and Mickey Rivers and volatile George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, Randolph merely went about his business. He made for a good fit in pinstripes, and later became a Yankees co-captain.

Randolph batted .276 lifetime — he got 2,210 hits in 2,202 games — and never made an error in his 47 postseason appearances.

After finishing his playing career with the Mets in 1992, Randolph served as an assistant GM with the Yankees in 1993. The next year, he moved back onto the field and became their third-base coach, a post he held for 10 seasons.

He was part of the Yankees team that won four World Series titles, and was manager Joe Torre’s bench coach in 2004. Before landing the Mets job, Randolph said he interviewed unsuccessfully for 11 or 12 managerial openings.

Randolph had Torre’s full backing for the move over to Queens and they remained friends, filming a series of popular local TV commercials together.

Randolph was hired in November 2004 and, boosted by the addition of Carlos Beltran and Martinez, the Mets showed immediate improvement. They went 83-79 in his first year, stopping a slide of three straight dismal seasons.

The Mets did far better the next year, tying the crosstown Yankees for baseball’s best regular-season record (97-65) and winning the NL East for the first time since 1988.

Making their first playoff appearance in six years, the Mets swept the Dodgers in the first round despite an injury-depleted pitching staff and went into the NLCS against the Cardinals with high expectations — those ended in Game 7.

The Mainstream Press Finally Recognizes "The Larry Sinclair Problem"

Barack Obama, Election 2008, FCC, Howard Stern, Larry Sinclair, Lynn Samuels, National Press Club, Politics, Sirius Radio, Tim Russert, XM
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Larry Sinclair to Reveal Corroborating Information on His Illegal Drug Use With Obama

Center for Forfeiture Law
WASHINGTON, June 16 — Despite death threats and an organized campaign to prevent him from speaking publicly, Larry Sinclair – on June 18, 2008, at 2:00 PM (sign-up starting at 1 PM) in the Holeman Lounge of the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045, will for the first time reveal the corroborating evidence for his claim that on November 6 + 7, 1999, Larry: (i) met Obama at a gay bar where Barack Obama arranged for the purchase of federal Schedule II drugs, (ii) which Larry and Obama thereafter ingested and (iii) then engaged in hi-risk, homosexual activities.Larry’s story burst on to the scene on January 18, 2008, when Larry released a short video containing these allegations on YouTube.com. That video has had close to a million views yet the mainstream media has completely ignored Larry’s serious allegations. Thereafter, a clearly orchestrated campaign to discredit Larry began on the internet which forced Larry to resort to federal court to protect his reputation.

At the press conference, Larry will (i) reveal the corroborating evidence for his allegations regarding Obama, (ii) address the time-line of the response of the Obama campaign to his allegations and the murder of Donald Young, the openly gay choir director of Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s now-former church and (iii) the significance of the refusal of U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. to allow Larry’s case to proceed.

SOURCE Center for Forfeiture Law

Montgomery Blair Sibley of the Center for Forfeiture Law, +1-202-508-3699, +1-202-478-0371 (FAX), SIBLEY@CIVILFORFEITURE.COM,

Redskin Sean Taylor's Murder Investigation Snags Fifth Suspect

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5th person charged in Redskins safety’s killing

1 hour ago

MIAMI (AP) — Prosecutors in Miami say a fifth person has been charged in the slaying of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor.

Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office spokesman Ed Griffith says Wednesday that 16-year-old Timothy Brown is charged with first-degree murder under a sealed warrant.

Taylor died of massive blood loss after he was shot at his Miami-area home during a botched robbery in November. The 24-year-old safety had made the Pro Bowl in 2006 and 2007.

Brown is being held in Lee County. It’s not immediately known when he’ll be transferred to Miami-Dade County to face the charge.

Trial for the other four suspects is set for Aug. 25. Prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty.

Losses at XM and Sirius as They Pursue a Merger

Artie Lange, Beetlejuice, Fred Norris, Gary Dell'Abate, George Takei, Howard Stern, J.D. Harmeyer, Kenneth Keith Callenbach, Lisa Lampanelli, Mark The Bagger, Ralph Cirella, Richard Christy, Robin Quivers, Sal the Stockbroker, Sirius, XM
May 13, 2008
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:: REUTERS Via NY Times Dot Com ::

Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, the pay radio stations that are seeking to merge, both reported solid gains in subscribers on Monday although both also posted quarterly losses.

Sirus said that its quarterly net loss narrowed to $104.1 million, or 7 cents a share, from a net loss of $144.7 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier.

At XM, the net loss increased to $129 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with $122 million, or 40 cents a share, a year earlier.

Sirius’s acquisition of XM is still awaiting the approval of the Federal Communications Commission. The Justice Department approved the deal in March.

Revenue at Sirius, the satellite radio home of the shock jock Howard Stern and the National Football League, climbed 33 percent, to $270.4 million.

The company, based in New York, added 322,534 net subscribers and ended the quarter with about 8.6 million, up 31 percent from 6.6 million one year ago.

The Washington-based XM, whose program lineup includes Major League Baseball and Oprah Winfrey, said it added 303,000 net subscribers and ended the quarter on March 31 with 9.33 million subscribers. That is up from 7.91 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Revenue rose to $308 million, which was lower than the average analyst forecast of $313 million.

XM and Sirius hope to persuade regulators that their merger would provide consumers with more choice in radio programming and could lead to lower prices in some cases.

Shares of Sirius closed up 14 cents, or 5.1 percent, at $2.87 on Nasdaq.

XM closed up 50 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $12.30, also on Nasdaq.

YouTube – April 28, 2008 Bill Maher O V E R T I M E

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Grateful Dead's archives have final resting place at UC-Santa Cruz – San Jose Mercury News

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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (YES!)

The Grateful Dead’s long strange trip through American popular culture is landing in a library at the University of California-Santa Cruz, preserved for future generations of study by scholars and stoners.

Three decades worth of archival materials – from business records to stage backdrops – have been donated by the band to the school’s McHenry Library, where a room called Dead Central is being dedicated to a beloved band dubbed “the largest unofficial religion in the world.”

UC-Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal joined Dead drummer Mickey Hart and guitarist and singer Bob Weir in a buoyant press conference Thursday at San Francisco’s aging Fillmore Auditorium, the site of 51 Dead concerts. In honor of the event, Blumenthal was given a tie-dyed T-shirt.

“All of this stuff doesn’t belong to us – it belongs to the culture that spawned us,” Weir said. “It seemed like getting it into a campus archive, with access for the people in the community that gave rise to it, was the right thing to do.”

The seaside campus was the “most enthusiastic” and “organized,” which helped it edge out two heavyweight suitors, Stanford and UC-Berkeley, Weir said.

“Santa Cruz is the seat of the neo-bohemian culture that we’re a facet of,” Weir said. “So there could not have been a more cozy place for this collection to land.”

The gift does not contain any of the band’s vast musical recordings; those are stored in a Southern California vault belonging to producer Rhino Entertainment. The university said it will work with Rhino on how to access musical material.

But it does contain valuable artifacts that document the band’s ascendance into one of California’s most durable and influential musical phenomena. Currently held in a 2,000-square-foot San Rafael warehouse, the collection includes the Dead’s first recording contract, life-size skeletons of band members used in the 1987 “Touch of Grey” video, and an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 fan letters from around the world, many decorated with elaborate art.

“What you’ll see is our conversation with the people who loved us, and vice versa,” Hart said.

A blue-chip team including several Silicon Valley-based fans – among them venture capitalist and musician Roger McNamee – will oversee a $2 million fundraising campaign for the archive. Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins has volunteered technical support.

Formal academics never meant much to the Dead.

But fans say their image-rich lyrics about such themes as love, trust and rebirth are worthy of scholarship. The song “Box of Rain” is as central to Deadheads as Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” was to Beats and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” was to Modernists.

For musicologists, there is value in studying how the Dead’s repertoire updated many of the nation’s older musical traditions, from bluegrass to jazz, said Fred Lieberman, a UC-Santa Cruz music professor. “They were the quintessential American band,” said Lieberman, who first proposed the archive idea to Hart, with whom he has collaborated on three books. This will boost the university’s scholarship on American culture, he said.

However, the gift may do little to help the university shed its image as a mecca of hacky sack and patchouli oil – and, in fact, is likely to attract a tie-dyed pilgrimage. In recent years, the school has worked to refocus attention on its ambitious scientific research efforts. It has even cracked down on its traditional April marijuana smoke-in at Porter Meadow, barring non-students and overnight guests.

Campus librarians said they would welcome Deadheads to the grassy lawn outside the library.

The library already has the vast and eclectic archive of the late Aptos composer Lou Harrison, and was looking to expand.

“This is the first step toward having a library that is a destination for scholars interested in studying an important aspect of America’s vernacular music,” he said.

The survival of the archives through turbulent decades is due to a devoted staffer named Eileen Law, who was hired in 1972 to take care of the Deadheads and who worked with the band for the next 34 years.

Among other jobs, she tended the mail that flooded into a San Rafael post office box.

“Pretty soon I found myself being the keeper of everything – press clips, posters, all their vinyl. I kept getting more and more stuff,” she said. “Everything I could collect, I did.”

At the press conference, UC-Santa Cruz librarians assured Law, who is unemployed, that she’ll play an important role in the cataloging of the material.

“I had faith that something good would someday happen to it,” Law said, grinning.

Fans rejoiced at the news of the gift – and instantly began offering their own contributions to the collection.

“Can we submit material?” one fan asked on the band’s Web site. “I have my own stash – much of it from the parking lot scene, ’83-’95.”

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED

See library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/GD_archive.html or e-mail grateful@ucsc.edu.

Contact Lisa M. Krieger at lkrieger@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5565.
SJMN

" These Are Not The Drugs You're Looking For "

9/11, Barack Obama, Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Tullycast


April 18, 2008 | Bill Maher | Part One

Stories


Catholic University, Hosting Pope, Keeps Dissenters Off Campus

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BLOOMBERG

By Nadine Elsibai

April 17 (Bloomberg) — Pope Benedict XVI will get the
royal treatment today when he speaks at Catholic University of
America in Washington. Actor Stanley Tucci got the hook.

Tucci, the star of “Big Night,” was prevented from
taking part in a university forum in 2004 because he favors
abortion rights. He’s not the only one who’s been turned away.
A contractor with the school bookstore in 2003 canceled a talk
by Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s delegate to Congress,
and the university president initially delayed funding a campus
NAACP chapter, both over the abortion issue.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to offer everybody who
believes whatever, especially what is contrary to the church,
the pride of place that a platform on this campus provides,”
said Father David O’Connell, the school’s president.

That policy will make the 121-year-old institution, the
only Vatican-chartered graduate and research center in the
U.S., a fitting host for Benedict XVI, who as cardinal was in
charge of enforcing church doctrine.

Benedict, 81, making his first visit as pope to the U.S.,
will offer a message of encouragement to the heads of the more
than 200 U.S. Catholic colleges and universities and
superintendents of the 195 dioceses in his 5 p.m. address. His
talk follows a Mass he will say at the Washington Nationals
baseball stadium.

While he’s expected to face some protesters during his
Washington visit, including supporters of victims of sexual
abuse by clergymen, many of the 6,400 students at Catholic
University are offering only enthusiasm.

Procession for Pontiff

Three nights ago, 300 students held a candlelight
procession through the campus, with stops to say the rosary, in
honor of the pontiff. The Campus Ministry sold baseball shirts
with his name in block letters across the back to raise money
for its missions. Students in the architectural program
designed the chair he’ll use during his talk.

University officials say that while students are free to
debate contentious issues in the classroom, such views
shouldn’t be highlighted elsewhere.

That policy was evident in October 2004. O’Connell halted
plans to invite Tucci to speak at a seminar on the Italian
cinema, because of his ties to Planned Parenthood, a group that
favors abortion rights, said Victor Nakas, a university
spokesman.

Contrary Positions

“Catholic institutions should not honor people who take
prominent, public positions diametrically opposed to the
Catholic Church’s teachings,” Nakas said.

In February 2003, the scheduled appearance by Norton was
canceled by the bookstore contractor after students complained
about her pro-abortion stance, Nakas said.

In the spring of 2004, students filed a petition seeking a
campus chapter of the NAACP. The request wasn’t honored until
O’Connell met with the civil rights organization’s then-
president, Kweisi Mfume, to get assurances that the students
wouldn’t have to follow the group’s national policy endorsing
abortion rights, Nakas said.

Jennifer Plante, Tucci’s publicist, said her client was
unavailable to comment. Tamainia Davis, a spokeswoman for
Norton, and Robert McIntyre, a spokesman for the NAACP, didn’t
immediately provide comment.

“Catholic colleges here are more challenged by the
American notions of academic freedom, which tends to be very
absolutist,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal
Newman Society, a group dedicated to strengthening Catholic
identity at church-affiliated schools.

Georgetown’s Different

That hasn’t stopped Georgetown University, a private
college in Washington run by the Jesuits, from allowing groups
and speakers whose positions don’t always follow the church.
H*yas for Choice, a gay rights and pro-abortion group named
after the school’s Hoyas nickname, recently hosted “Choice
Week” on campus.

Catholic University’s strict environment is relatively
new, said Mark Judge, a 1990 graduate. There was “a lot of
hedonism in the 1980s,” he said.

The “president is an orthodox guy who is faithful to the
magisterium,” said Judge, a Potomac, Maryland, freelance
writer. “Whereas before, that kind of orthodoxy was not
tolerated, now it’s celebrated.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Nadine Elsibai in Washington at
nelsibai@bloomberg.net.

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

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