The Washington Post ran an article today, describing a number of racist incidents. Reporter Kevin Merida interviewed campaign workers who described situatins that they had faced in Hillary country, in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania.

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The Huffington Post is frequently fun to read. Yesterday they front-paged the story, The GOP's New Slogan Already Being Used to Market Depression by Jason Linkins. Seemed they too are for changed only the slogan Change You Deserve is already being used to an anti-depressant.

AP reporter Anne Flaherty "http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Pentagon_biggest_obstacle_to_Democr_05132008.html">updates lobbying effort by Pentagon to defeat Jim Webb's bill to enable Vets to attend in-state public universities and colleges free of charge.

Veterans groups say it's time to expand college aid for GIs, and Democrats want to use an election year to do it. Their biggest obstacle? The Pentagon.

all posts from Falls Church News Press by permission of Nicholas Benton owner/editor.

F.C. Makes Virginia History by Electing Gay Afro-American

Written by Nicholas F. Benton

Virginia history was made in the Falls Church city election Tuesday. By being elected to the City Council, Lawrence Webb has become the first openly gay Afro-American elected official in the history of the commonwealth.

I recommend a post by Jared Bernstein I came upon which links to McCain's proposed tax program.

It is a table constructed by the Tax Policy Center's steely-eyed tax analysts, and it reveals nothing less than McCain's secret plan to diminish the US government beyond recognition. If he gets his way, conservatives will finally be able to say they've achieved the goal set out by Grover Norquist: to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The numbers in the table show the revenue loss to the Federal government from McCain's proposed tax cuts. In the far right corner is the 10-year total: -$5.7 trillion.

People deride the Republican candidate as "McSame," implying a continuation of Bushonomics as well as the president's foreign policy. But from the perspective of domestic policy, it's much worse. Sure, McCain extends the Bush tax cuts but that's the least of it. At $1.7 trillion they amount to less than a third of the damage.

Note also that the big ticket tax cuts-eliminating the alternative minimum tax and lowering the corporate tax-both follow on another Bush tradition of exacerbating market-driven (i.e., pre-tax) inequalities by cutting high-end taxes the most.

CNN called the Indiana primary for Clinton at 1 a.m. today with 99% of the vote counted. At that time she had a 2% lead; however more than 1% of the vote in Lake County remained to be counted. He won by large margins in the four counties that Kerry won in 2004--which are considered to be Democratic party strongholds in a state that traditionally votes Republican.

In North Carolina he had a decisive victory with a 14% lead. Taking both elections together his vote count exceeded hers by more than 200,000.

Dear MoveOn member,

On Friday, we launched The Bush-McCain Challenge—a fun new online game. The reaction has been AMAZING. 300,000 people have already played, and most of them aren't even MoveOn members!

The Challenge is simple—you just have to tell the difference between Bush and McCain. It's trickier (and more fun) than you'd think!

Our goal is to get 1 million people to play. Can you try it, then send this email to your friends?

Start the Bush-McCain Challenge by clicking here.

A Sudanese photographer who worked for Al Jazeera was arrested and spent seven years at "Gitmo" without ever being charged. Now back in Sudan, He appeared on TV there to tell his story. Yesterday the Miami Herald covered what he had to say about his experience.

''After 2,340 days spent in the most heinous prison mankind has ever known, we are honored to be here. Thank you, and thank all those defended us and of our right in freedom.''

... snip ...

This is one of my broody Tuesday's. No need to say more about THAT. Except...an interesting post for those of you who are washing your hands of this years presidential election. From hte McClatchy Washington Bureau comes this gem McCain vows to name more 'Alitos' and 'Robertses.' As McCain might say, "My friends, please take notice."

Posted at the request of Nick Benton. The FCNP website is experiencing technical difficulties.

Commentary from the May 1, 2008 edition of the Falls Church News-Press:

THE LYNCHING OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT

By Nicholas F. Benton
Tuesday was the saddest day in America in a very long time. The nation’s core values were not attacked by some foreign enemy, but from within. Virulent racism suddenly reared its ugly head, unbridled and unbound, roaring through the nation’s most powerful media institutions to rip the Rev. Jeremiah Wright asunder and to compel his brother Afro-American, a man who would be president, into a public spectacle of compliance and subservient denial. It was a lynching.