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January 19, 2008

Nevada Results Reveal A Big Challenge for Obama: How To Win Die-Hard Dems?

Ever wake up in Las Vegas the morning after a not-so-good night? Barack Obama has not yet gotten the chance to sleep off the Nevada caucus returns--and he's not likely to be getting much sleep between now and Supersaturated Tuesday on February 5--but the Nevada results ought to be troubling for the Obama camp (even though the Nevada caucus was a rather odd affair). Exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton, who won by 6 points, scored well with women, Hispanics, and working-class voters fretting about the recession. The problem for Obama: this is a big chunk of the Democratic electorate.

Sasha Abramsky focuses on the lemonade: Obama was competitive with Clinton in rural white areas. But even if Obama can scoop up John Edwards voters in future contests--Edwards ran a distant third in Nevada, bagging about 5 percent of the vote--Clinton is sitting on a damn good base at the moment: women, Latinos and blue-collar Dems. It will be hard to win the Democratic nomination without those blocs.

Obama could well triumph in South Carolina, depending on how African-Americans vote. But his true political challenge is besting Clinton among the critical die-hard Democratic slices. And with February 5 fast approaching, he doesn't have much time to win over these voters.

Parsing the Exit Polls in Nevada

Sasha's got the results and the analysis from Nevada. Let's take a look at what the exit polls say about the demographics.

First, the Republican race, won by Mitt Romney (who was the only non-Paul candidate who took this state seriously). Mormons are about seven percent of the population in Nevada, but they were about 25 percent of Republican voters today. And 94 percent of Mormons went for Romney.

There were few independents in Nevada: 84 percent of exit poll respondents identified as Republicans; 14 percent identified as independents. Romney won amongst GOP voters and Ron Paul won big amongst indies. John McCain had no constituency.

Romney's long term attention to the state mattered: 44 percent of voters said they made up their minds over a month ago. Also helping Romney was the fact that the two most important issues to voters were the economy (where Romney has private-sector experience) and illegal immigration (on which Romney has the stiffest plan).

Second, the Democratic race, won by Hillary Clinton. Hispanic voters (15 percent of the electorate) went 64-26 for Clinton. Black voters (also 15 percent of the electorate) went 83-14 for Obama. That's a pretty stunning split. White voters (65 percent of the electorate) went 52-31 for Clinton.

Voters who identified "change" as their biggest priority went 57-29 for Obama. Voters who identified "experience" went 86-6 for Clinton. Many more people said they valued change, but still—beating Obama by 80 points on the issue of experience is so stunning I feel like it might be a mistake.

And finally, Obama got the supposedly all-important Culinary Union endorsement 10 days ago. But according to exit polls, only 25-30 percent of voters made up their mind in the last two weeks. Fifty percent said they made up their mind over a month ago. That endorsement may have come too late to make much of a difference. And it is entirely possible that union members didn't pay attention to it at all.

Results In from Nevada, But Too Early to Count Chickens

The results are in: Romney and Clinton are the declared winners in the Nevada caucus.

Is it significant? More so for Clinton than Romney. If Romney had lost, in a state with a heavy Mormon vote, and in an election which most of the other GOP candidates ignored, it would have been cataclysmic for his campaign. As it is, he’s grabbed a few more delegates and put a modest amount more distance between himself and the other candidates in the race for the nomination. Not enough distance to really impact the race going into February 5th, but enough to at least provide padding should he flop in South Carolina when the votes are tallied later tonight and should Giuliani reenter the scene with a strong win in Florida.

For Clinton, she’s now recovered from the Iowa blues. So can she coast in the wake of this victory? Absolutely not. With Obama nipping at her heels in rural, white, Nevadan counties such as Elko, he’s shown he can compete effectively in the interior West, one of the country’s up-for-grabs electoral regions.

Moreover, Edwards’ support collapsed going into the caucuses. As someone who believes Edwards presence has enriched the campaign, I’m saddened by this. But, realistically, Nevada probably marks the beginning of the end of his candidacy.

Look at the numbers and you’ll see Obama apparently picked up more of these loose Edwards voters than did Clinton. He also won over more of the independents who attended Democratic caucuses. If Edwards’ support hemorrhages in other states too, my bet is the newly minted two-horse race will remain tight into Super Tuesday and, quite likely, beyond. Nevada’s result may well mean Edwards can’t be president. But he could yet become a king-maker.

-- Sasha Abramsky.

Dems Get Dirty in Nevada

The Obama campaign has nabbed a robocall left on the voicemail of a Nevada supporter that refers to Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" four times. No word on who is funding the ad.

On the other side, Bill Clinton, top Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, and other Clinton surrogates are alleging that union officials are intimidating union members into caucusing for Obama. They are claiming that Clinton-friendly union members are being told to stay away from the caucuses. (This, by the way, will have the effect of delegitimizing the caucus if Obama wins. That is likely the point of the Clinton camp's agitating.)

All of this builds on the nasty radio ad Obama supporters are airing in Spanish.

MEMO FROM STARR VALLEY, NEVADA

It’s mid-morning, and Republicans are caucusing all over Nevada. They’ve been doing so since 9am.

In Starr Valley, halfway between Elko and the wild-west town of Wells, in an epic snow covered landscape of ranches and soaring mountains, 43 Republicans are caucusing in the Starr Valley Progressive Club. It’s a huge turnout for a region this remote. Many of the caucus-goers have driven scores of miles to the old wooden building, with a small Mitt Romney sign outside and a herd of wooly cattle across the icy street to cast their votes.

The people here, a goodly number of them Mormons, have a keen sense of their region’s history. Many of their grandparents and great grandparents homesteaded the region in the nineteenth century, and stories of epic cattle drives “before the railroads” provide fodder for familial lore. Most of the men and women here live in the same houses their ancestors built and ranch the land as they did.

“My family homesteaded this area right about the turn of the century,” says Sheriff Dale Lotspeich, who is in charge of signing in the voters from his precinct. “My parents and I still live in the family homestead – 300 acres. We run about a dozen head of cattle and fifty head of sheep. People typically here are against higher taxes, are very self-sufficient, don’t believe in big government. We’re very down to earth. One of the big things we care about is the right to bear arms. Family values are very strong.”

Unlike the Democrats, who have a traditional form-and-reform caucus process in Nevada, with candidate supporters continually coalescing into new groups until “viability” has been reached for candidates, the Republicans have a simple ballot process. As the suns burns off the morning fog over the wilderness outside, they talk about party policies for the first half of the meeting, from abortion to tax cuts, from the sanctity of marriage to gun control, and then move on to the real business at hand – choosing the man they want to be their presidential candidate.

They discuss the merits and flaws of each candidate for half an hour, place their ballots in an envelope and wait for volunteers to count the votes.

Not surprisingly, since Romney’s the only Republican candidate to really woo Nevadans, and, in addition, since eastern Nevada has a large Mormon presence, two thirds of the caucus-goers choose Romney.

I’ve no idea whether Starr Valley will be representative of the rest of the state, in particular Las Vegas – though the last polls released did show Romney had a sizeable lead statewide and the Associated Press is already calling the race for Romney. Huckabee is seen as being honest and somewhat charismatic here, but voters seem to have been turned off by his lack of knowledge about the state. Thompson’s campaign has been so lackluster, few in rural Nevada support him even though they generally agree with his conservative positions. McCain curries favor for being a westerner; but, despite his win in New Hampshire, he doesn’t seem to have gotten enough traction here. People think he’s too liberal, too soft on push-button conservative social and economic issues they care about. Ron Paul – they like him, many of them an awful lot, but they’re pretty certain he’s not electable. As for Giuliani… big city, east coast; need we say more?

We’ll know more in a few hours. Right now, I’m off to the Democratic caucus in the tiny city of Wells.

-- Sasha Abramsky.

January 18, 2008

Caucus-Eve: Obama Woos Elko

Elko is a tiny town, but in the mountainous, snowy vastnesses of eastern Nevada, three hundred miles to the east of Reno, it passes for a metropolis.

Barack Obama, wrapping up his caucus campaigning in the state, came to this overwhelmingly white town in conservative ranching and mining country to speak. The venue his campaign selected for the rally was the town’s high school, a large brick building adjacent to a sprawling cemetery.

Unlike Edwards’ event in Reno last night, Obama’s had all the trappings of superstardom:

Elko’s bomb squad was out in force; Secret Service men stood guard at the perimeter; huge flags adorned the auditorium and in the run-up to the speeches martial music was blasted out by a local brass band. The banner-wavers sitting on the platform behind the speakers all waved "hope" and "change" placards. And a large cordoned off area, complete with wireless internet, catered to the busloads of journalists disgorged half an hour before the event began. There was none of that for Edwards yesterday.

There's nothing bootstraps about this operation. It’s a slick, well-oiled, scrupulously efficient machine…and that’s both good and bad. On the one hand, on the eve of the Nevada caucus—fresh off the court victory in Las Vegas allowing the casino workers (whose union has endorsed Obama) to vote outside regular caucus hours, and locations, on the Strip—Barack Obama seems to be edging back into front-runner position. There’s a poise and a confidence to the Obama people that Hillary Clinton and her tean used to have, back before Iowa dented her sense of invulnerability. If Obama wins Nevada, he will have proven himself as a viable western candidate; and if he does that, he will truly enter the two weeks leading up to the February 5th mega-primary as the man to beat.

And that brings me to the flip side of all the poise and clinical precision of the Obama machine. Obama's extraordinary rise is due to his claiming of the mantle of change, of freshness, of hope for the new. Edwards' blue collar union supporters are passionate for their man, but, however unfairly, burly unionists can come off as passé in today’s America. Hillary Clinton’s supporters have to wrestle with the charge she’s old-hat. Obama, by contrast, is defined as new, and that’s why he’s winning support not just from traditional Democrats but from people who have never voted before, as well as from Republicans alienated by the ineptitude and cronyism of the Bush administration.

Earlier today, I met a retired pilot, David Sugasa, who now runs a wildlife haven in the rugged mountains west of Winnemucca. He and his wife are Republicans—the last time he supported a Democrat for President was when JFK ran, back when Sugasa was too young to vote; but both David and his wife are seriously considering casting their support to Obama. Hope…it's one of the most powerful four-letter words out there.

But get too clinical and there’s a risk "hope" sounds canned; change merely a mantra. Wave too many red, white and blue "hope" banners and the word becomes simply eye candy, its meaning lost in the miasma. There's a risk the hope placard at a superstar's rally becomes about as meaningful as lighters or cell phones waved at a rock concert.

“I decided to run because of what Dr. King called ‘the fierce urgency of now.' I believe there is such a thing as being too late, and that moment is almost upon us…People all across the country want something new; they know the time for change has come," Obama told the enthusiastic Elko crowd. During his nearly forty-minute speech he said all the right things—talking about homelessness, under-funded schools, winding down the war in Iraq, closing Guantanamo, tackling global warming, keeping social security solvent, and so on—and his audience applauded in all the right places. But the raw passion that Edwards managed to draw out, both in himself and his audience, in Reno yesterday wasn’t there. This rally was razzmatazz first, message second.

No doubt about it, Obama's good, he's very good. And his message of hope is both genuine and compelling. “I’ve seen the politics of fear,” Obama said, critiquing the Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq, and proposing instead a politics of optimism and can-do change. “And I know nothing worthwhile’s ever happened in this country except when somebody, somewhere decided to hope.”

It’s a potent message. The question is, can he retain the essence of freshness down the home-stretch, rather than simply rehashing the mantra of change at ever-more glitzy, perfectly calibrated, rallies? If he can’t, down the road, way after Nevada has receded back from the spotlight, he might start to lose the support of undecided, cynical voters; months from now, those voters might start to view him as just another slick, front-runner, politician. Paradoxically, Obama-the-agent-for-change's own success could, down the road, prove to be his Achilles heel.

-- Sasha Abramsky

5 Questions On Israel For The Next Debate

As I've said before, there's been a vacuum surrounding Israel and Palestine this campaign season. Moderators have broached the issue only twice in the last 13 debates. And the most recent question, posed by Wendell Goler last week at the Fox News debate in South Carolina, was pretty weak. As Goler wound up—"Mayor Giuliani, President Bush is in the Middle East ... laying the groundwork for a Palestinian state"—there was, briefly, a glimmer of hope. Then he tossed this doozy of a softball: "I wonder, sir, how you would keep a Palestinian state from becoming a breeding ground for anti-American terrorism." One of several surreal assumptions behind the question seemed to be, "The Palestinians are prostrate, mightn't it be better if they're kept that way?" And that to the candidate with the Likudnik A-team advising him. Oh, well.

Since the debates have been so deficient in this area, I asked five well-informed Middle East observers what they would ask the candidates on the issue, if they could ask anything. The only ground rule was to keep it brief; no other boundaries. Here are their responses:

From Juan Cole of Informed Comment: Has Israeli colonization of the West Bank proceeded to the point where a two-state solution has become impractical? And, if so, isn't there now a choice between an Apartheid state or a one-state solution?

From Matthew Duss of TAPPED: Recognizing that Israel's settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal under international law, and recognizing that their relentless expansion, which has continued over the last decade despite repeated Israeli assurances to the contrary, is both a source of Palestinian suffering and a major instigator of extremism and violence, as well as being deeply prejudicial to final status negotiations, are you prepared to take a firm stand against the settlements, and to carry through with real consequences if Israel does not cease settlement expansion?

From Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States: Since 1993, the United States has pursued a policy of seeking peace between Israel and Palestine by isolating Iran. As former Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk said, the two were symbiotic. Peace was necessary to isolate Iran, isolating Iran was necessary for peace. Fifteen years later, we can conclude that this strategy was an utter failure. Yet, the Bush Administration is following a similar path, seeking to create an alliance of Israel and Sunni Arab dictatorships to isolate Iran under the guise of peacemaking. In your administration, how would you approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? By repeating the Bush/Clinton policy or by pursuing a holistic approach aimed at giving all regional actors a stake in the outcome and process of peacemaking?

From Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss: Why is it that our last two presidents only made a major push on Israel/Palestine at the end of their 8-year terms, when they had nothing politically to lose? Doesn't this show that this is the big enchilada in foreign affairs and that our politics around this issue are unhealthy? What will you do differently, before your 8 years are up?

From Stephen Zunes of Foreign Policy in Focus: For Senator Clinton. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, you co-sponsored a resolution condemning Hezbollah for its alleged use of "human shields." Since then, detailed on-the-ground studies by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, while highly critical of Hezbollah's responsibility for civilian deaths in Israel, have challenged the claims by the Bush administration that Hezbollah's alleged use of "human shields" contributed to the high numbers of civilian deaths from Israeli bombardment in Lebanon. Similarly, the reports of these credible human rights organizations have placed responsibility for the vast majority of the 800 Lebanese civilian deaths on the government of Israel. Are you willing to acknowledge that Israel was culpable for most of the Lebanese civilian deaths? And, as president, would you belittle the findings of human rights groups in order to support violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. allies?

I'll be sending these along to the next few debate moderators. Have a good question for the candidates on Israel? Put proposals in the comments.

—Justin Elliott

The Debate Over Virtual Schools

An appeals court ruling to cut funds for a virtual K-8 school in Wisconsin has rippled through the interwebs this week, causing tears among some students and applause from one teachers' union.

Online learning is all the rage among home-schoolers these days. A Wisconsin superintendent praised the virtual school program for better serving kids with learning challenges, medical conditions, and special needs, in addition to high-performing students, students who need to move at their own pace, and students who require a more flexible schedule. Which could also read as: "Whew! Thanks for taking all these difficult kids off our hands!"

But folks at the National Education Association say a program with unlicensed teachers and no student-to-student interaction should not be draining tax money from traditional public schools.

The debate raises at least two interesting questions:

1) Are we so unhappy with current public school curriculum models that we are turning to online ones?

2) Why are so many kids—90,000 students in 18 states—leaving the bullies and heavy backpacks behind for the virtual classroom? In other words, is there anything public schools can learn from online schools to improve the experience for kids?

Funny thing is, the campaign trail these days is pretty much devoid of any education talk whatsoever. I'm sure the words "schools" and "learning" seem pretty dull compared to "surge" and "terror," but just think, if the war does go on for another 10 years, the students we're having problems teaching now will be 10 years older—and that much harder to reach.

Mitt Romney's Lobbyist Connections

In a tense exchange with an AP reporter on Thursday, Mitt Romney insisted that even though a registered lobbyist is one of his senior advisers, lobbyists do not "run" his campaign.

The claim is part of Romney's new self-styled outsider message: lobbyists are part of a broken Washington system and Romney has nothing to do with them.

"My campaign is not based on Washington lobbyists," Romney said. "I haven't been in Washington. I don't have lobbyists at my elbow that are arguing for one industry or another industry and I do not have favors I have to repay to people who have been in Washington for years."

The truth is that Romney is tied closely with many lobbyists. The AP reporter Romney exchanged sharp words with later reported that several Romney aides and advisers are lobbyists. Additionally, as the Nation first reported, Romney has accepted the second most money from lobbyists of any Republican presidential candidate, and has received the most endorsements from lobbyists.

The lobbyists who have endorsed Romney have represented, in 2007 alone, nearly every part of the health care and financial services industries, the NRA, members of the tobacco industry, and gambling interests.

In fact, nearly every lobbyist who has endorsed Romney is peddling influence for the health care industry. They represent insurance companies like AIG and New York Life; trade groups like the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association and the Healthcare Leadership Council (which reps "chief executives from all disciplines within the health care system"); pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer; and other extensions of the American health care apparatus like the California Association of Physicians Groups, the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, the American Dental Association, and the Biotechnology Industry Association.

Romney's lobbyists also represent Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte & Touche, and most of the major accounting firms. Several of them work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At least one works for the NRA. Collectively, they represent huge swaths of the energy industry, including big players like the American Petroleum Institute and Chevron Texaco.

Romney's pals have also lobbied for the Carlyle Group, Microsoft, American Airlines, the Venetian Casino Resort, the Poker Players Alliance, and TOP Tobacco.

The Washington publication Roll Call has listed the lobbyists who are endorsing Romney (there are currently 24). As a public service and a reminder to Governor Romney, we used the Senate lobbying registry to pull out some of the clients they work for. This is a partial list, and is limited to 2007 clients only.

Phil Anderson (Navigators)

AIG
New York Life Insurance Co.

Henry Bonilla (The Normandy Group)

Verizon Communications
TIG Insurance
National Association of Community Health Centers
American Airlines
King Aerospace, Inc.

Michael Bromberg (Capitol Health Group)

Health Industry Group Purchasing Association
America's Health Insurance Plans
Healthcare Leadership Council

Cesar Conda (Navigators)

GlaxoSmithKline
New York Life Insurance Co.
AIG
Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers

John Feore (Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal)

Wellpoint, Inc.
California Association of Physicians' Groups

Amy Flachbert (K&L Gates)

International Intellectual Property Institute
Biotechnology Industry Organization
Microsoft Corp.
Neurotechnology Industry Organization
AIG Technical Services
Silverlink

Nate Gatten (American Capitol Group)

Freddie Mac
American Dental Assocation

Gregg Hartley (Cassidy & Associates)

T-Mobile
Deutsche Telekom
Disney/ABC
Freddie Mac

Ed Kutler (Clark & Weinstock)

Pfizer
Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance
PhRMA

Drew Maloney (Ogilvy Government Relations)

American Chemistry Council
Monsanto
American Petroleum Institute
Reliant
Chevron Texaco
NRA
Citigroup
Fannie Mae
Carlyle Group

Darryl Nirenbergh (Patton Boggs)

TOP Tobacco
Venetian Casino Resort
Poker Players Alliance

David Norcross (Blank Rome)

HealthSouth Corporation

Vin Weber (Clark & Weinstock)

Goldman Sachs
Deloitte & Touche
Ernst & Young
PricewaterhouseCoopers
KPMG
Xcel Energy Services
Great River Energy
Semiconductor Industry Association
American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging
HealthSouth Corporation
Health Net
Pfizer

[Ed. Note: This blog post originally said that Mitt Romney has received the most money from lobbyists. It has been corrected.]

Obama Supporters Cross the Line in Nevada

Barack Obama has generally been less nasty and more truthful than Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race, but this week his supporters in Nevada crossed the line.

The textile and hotel workers' union UNITE-HERE, which is supporting Obama, is ticked off that Clinton supporters filed a lawsuit to make it more difficult for its members to caucus tomorrow. (The lawsuit failed.) So it aired a Spanish-language radio ad in Nevada that is pretty unfair. Here's the translated text:

Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.

Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless. Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; there’s no respect.

Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people.

Sen. Obama's campaign slogan is "Si Se Puede" ("Yes We Can"). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, "Si Se Puede."

It's pretty ridiculous to say that "Hillary Clinton does not respect our people." Clinton has long-standing ties to the Hispanic community, and has worked with it and for it for many years. She's been rewarded with the endorsements of many Hispanic leaders. Clinton may not play politics in the cleanest way sometimes, and she may not be as committed as other candidates to driving lobbyists and special interests out of Washington, and she may be a touch too hawkish on foreign policy—but her commitment to minority issues is unquestioned.

A Problem for Barack Obama

No matter what happens in the Democratic caucus in Nevada (this Saturday) and the Democratic primary in South Carolina (next Saturday), Barack Obama has a problem. Mind you, I'm not predicting his demise. But as he and Hillary Clinton head toward Supersaturated Tuesday on February 5, Obama will have a profound challenge that she will not.

Both have money and organization. But she is running a conventional campaign; he is not. She waves her resume, cites her experience, and proclaims she is ready to do the heavy lifting on Day One. He claims that he can change politics--and, thus, government policymaking--because of his vision and strength (and force) of character. He is mounting a campaign that aspires to be transformative. She is heading a campaign that seeks to put its candidate into a job.

After South Carolina, the presidential campaign will be dominated and shaped by ads. With so many states--including California--in immediate play, there's no way the candidates can do retail politicking that matters (like they did in Iowa and New Hampshire). It will be easy for Clinton to sell herself (in conventional terms) through television ads, radio spots, mailers, and the like. Obama may find in tougher to convey the intangibles he is banking on--hope, faith (in him), transcendence--via 60-second snippets. Before signing up with a noble crusade, some Democratic voters might need first to feel the Obama magic. On the other hand, no voter needs to experience Clinton's soul to conclude she is the most qualified for the job.

Connecting with voters in a transformative manner will be a difficult task for Obama in the crazy nine days between South Carolina and February 5. As a more conventional candidate, Clinton could have an advantage at this stage. After all, the conventional often works.

I explain this all a bit further here.

Reporter Calls Romney On Lie in Mid-Sentence

We've discussed the campaign press a fair amount recently. I'll make an additional observation: a reporter's feistiness tends to be inversely proportional to his or her seniority. The most vocal agitators are college kids with cameras. After them are journalists from small, ideologically driven magazines and small-time reporters with nothing to lose. But as reporters gain prominence and work for increasingly "serious" publicans, they have more at stake, including their reputations and the reputations of their employers. Also, they tend to be older and less interested in direct confrontation. (I'm speaking in generalities, of course, and there are exceptions.)

That's why what Glen Johnson of the AP did to Mitt Romney is so unlikely and so outstanding. He actual called a candidate on a deliberate falsehood in mid-sentence.

Notice that, afterward, the debate raged over whether Ron Kaufman "runs" Romney's campaign. That's not really relevant. The sentence Romney was saying when Johnson interrupted was, "I don't have lobbyists that are running my campaign. I don't have lobbyists that are tied to my..."

Kaufman may not be running the campaign, but he is most certainly "tied" to it.

Update: Glen Johnson's article on all this is out, and it's a doozy. He looks at a whole slew of Romney aides and advisers who are lobbyists or well-connected Washington politicos, significantly undercutting Romney's claim that he is running an outsider's campaign.

Blackwater's Latest Contract

Blackwater has had a rough year PR-wise, as the company has faced allegations ranging from murder to tax evasion, while also managing to kill the New York Times' possibly feral pooch Hentish along the way. But, in the aftermath, Erik Prince's companies certainly haven't suffered for business. In late September, less than two weeks after Blackwater contractors opened fire on a Baghdad street, killing 17 civilians, the company's air cargo and transport subsidiary, Presidential Airways, was awarded a 4-year, $92 million contract by the Pentagon to provide its services in central and southern Asia. And, just yesterday, the agency announced that it was throwing the company another $50 million contract—this one, no-bid—to provide "heavy lift fixed-wing aircraft, personnel, equipment, tools, material, maintenance, and supervision necessary to perform passenger and cargo (combi) Short Take-Off and Landing air transportation services." The area of operations, as in the first contract, is Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.

Though lesser-known than Blackwater, Presidential Airways also has a somewhat controversial history. Its planes, and those operated by its parent company, Aviation Worldwide Services, have been linked to CIA rendition flights. And both companies face a wrongful death suit filed by the families of three soldiers who were killed when one of Presidential's CASA 212's crashed in Afghanistan in 2004. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the crash, reported that "the probable cause of the accident was the captain’s inappropriate decision to fly a nonstandard route and his failure to maintain adequate terrain clearance, which resulted in the inflight collision with mountainous terrain." According to the report, the pilot had failed to file a flight plan or "adhere to a defined route of flight," and the company itself failed to "ensure that the flight crews adhered to company policies" or FAA or Defense Department regulations. At the time of the crash, the report says, Presidential's crew was intentionally flying through a valley at low altitude for "fun."

Shrub's Hot Air Economic Balloon

Returning from his desert sojourn, President Bush is facing tanking stock markets, a housing collapse that, as long predicted, is pulling down the whole economy, an enfeebled currency, and a do-nothing political climate both in Washington and on the campaign trail. His response: a pipsqueak economic stimulus plan.

According to a report yesterday from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bush’s scheme is a lot of hot air. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the center, said the rebate temporarily eliminating the 10 percent income tax bracket isn’t aimed at the people who would spend the money. "This plan would bypass altogether, or provide only partial help to, the more than 40 percent of tax filers — over 50 million filers — with the most modest incomes. Families of four below $40,950 would get partial help or nothing at all."

You can read the center’s report at www.cbpp.org, along with more effective suggestions for economic stimulus.

January 17, 2008

Eugene Debs, Meet Bobby Kennedy

If Edwards can't win, somebody’s forgotten to tell the candidate. With a day left before Nevadans caucus Saturday morning, John Edwards is pulling out all the rhetorical stops to wow his supporters.

Several hundred fans, a large number of them blue-collar workers, crammed into the Carpenters' Union hall in Reno Thursday evening to hear the candidate deliver an impassioned plea for change.

Eleven months ago, when the Democrats held their first candidates' forum, in Carson City, Nevada, I covered the event for Mother Jones. Back in '04, I'd found Edwards somewhat syrupy. In Carson City, by contrast, he was magnetic. And in the year since he has honed his message and his delivery still further.

Dressed in a casual black shirt and jeans, in the sweaty intimacy of a crowded union hall—big carpenters sitting on the platform behind him, muscular 1930s-styled union posters adorning the walls—Edwards decried the state of Bush's America. There was a rage, and a passion to his presentation that went well beyond simply hamming it up to the crowd.

To my mind, his words are worth quoting at length. They have the barnstorming fury of a Eugene Debs, perhaps a later-years Bobby Kennedy.

On the war on terror: "Here's a radical idea. How about we have a President of the United States who believes in the Constitution and Bill of Rights? I will close Guantanamo, which is an embarrassment. No renditions. There will be no torture permissible."

On labor: "When I am President and it becomes necessary for you to go on strike, when you’re walking that picket line, nobody, nobody will walk through that line and take your job from you."

On corporate profiteering and widespread poverty: "I see an America where last year Exxon Mobil made $40 billion and the CEO of one of the largest health care companies made $200 million. And I contrast it with a picture of 40 million Americans who have no health care coverage and have to go to the emergency room to get treatment. Thirty seven million will wake up literally worried about feeding their families and children. Children are living on the streets in America—while Exxon Mobil made $40 billion. Last year 35 million went hungry in America. Enough is enough. We’re better than this."

On the need for change: "We can start a tidal wave of change that spreads across this country with a power and with a force that cannot be stopped. And when that wave of change is done and that wave has spread across America, every one of us will be able to look our children in the eyes and say, 'We did for you what our parents and grandparents did for us. We made absolutely certain that we left America better than we found it and we gave you a better life than we had.'"

Edwards may well not win the nomination—though he's still a serious contender. And if he doesn't, he will have lost not to a novice but to another heavyweight candidate. In a sense, there's a refreshing luxury of choice between quality candidates this time around. But as long as Edwards is in the race, the issues of poverty and justice are going to be talked about in a way, and with a passion, that hasn't been seen in mainstream politics for decades.

Edwards' booklet, The Plan to Build One America [pdf], outlines in great detail the candidate's plans to tackle poverty, hunger, the health care crisis, the growing income gaps in the country, and the decline of America's international reputation. Perhaps most importantly, he goes to bat for organized labor in a way no other candidate is doing.

Equally refreshing is what's not in the plan. While he does write about crime and drugs, neither merits its own section—a welcome change from the years of tough-on-crime hysteria when every candidate, of whatever political persuasion, had to prove that they were tougher and badder and meaner than their opponents, with the end result that America became the leading incarceration nation on earth.

Win or lose, Edwards campaign is raising the bar, pushing social justice issues center-stage, and fighting the good fight for a constituency at the wrong end of an awful lot of changes these past several years.

—Sasha Abramsky

The Goldberg Variations (On Lame): What Happens When Certain Right Wingers Leave the Amen Corner

Having given up TV, I now appear to be obsessed with it. Check out Jon Stewart's dismemberment of Jonah Goldberg and his book "Liberal Fascism." It's sooo delicious, mostly because Stewart, a consistently gentlemanly interview, isn't trying to dismember him, he just comes to understand that Goldberg has nary a clue what the hell he's talking about. He actually believed he's drawn a straight line between Mussolini and Hillary Clinton. To ask him a simple question about his own book was to hear a grown man babble. My favorite was when Goldberg excoriated liberals for invoking fascism too often and Stewart said wonderingly, holding up the book, "so...you thought you'd put it in the title?" Goldberg was equally unconvincing justifying the smiley-face-with-Hitler-mustache cover. Handily, Goldberg proved Tim Noah's analysis that Goldberg is one of the few "winners" left standing from Monicagate. (I don't know if Goldberg has railed against liberal nepotism, but check Noah to see how his mom got him where he is.) This performance alone validates FP's 10 Commandments of Punditry.

Granted, condensing something you spent years thinking about into six minutes isn't easy. I've done book interviews that were train wrecks because the host was either an idiot or an ideologue for whom I was present as a mere prop, so I know how these things can throw you. You have no idea how hard it is to debate a moron who thinks he's Einstein. I once spent long minutes on one of these wannabee "Nu Afrikan" radio shows so incredulous at the insanity I was speechless, which the host, and his nutjob "kill whitey" audience interpreted as my bowing to their brilliance. I hung up on a racist, fascist O'Reilly wannabee in Colorado or someplace, he was such a mouth-breathing bully with no idea how stupid he was. I would imagine he and his audience say I lost that debate. But Stewart ain't stupid. He taped for 18 minutes, trying to get a usable six.

Best case: Goldberg needs media training. Worst: he should never stray from the echo chamber of right wing true believers. Or visit only those liberal hosts who aren't smart, who don't bother to read the book they're discussing and who don't care about anything but their egos and income.

White House: What Missing Emails?

Today, the White House dramatically changed its tune on the 5 to 10 million emails reportedly missing from its servers. Since early 2007, the administration has repeatedly acknowledged (to the press and Congress) that it had experienced a "technical issue" and that a still unknown quantity of emails might not have been archived, as required by the Presidential Records Act. But, asked by reporter about the missing emails today at a White House press conference, Tony Fratto, the deputy press secretary, contradicted the administration's previous statements.

Q: ...I've taken a real sky view of this particular story, but— so it was wrong to say a few months ago that there were possibly millions of emails missing?

MR. FRATTO: I think those charges [of the 5 million missing emails] came from outside the White House. I think that's the charge of one of the—

Q: One of your colleagues [Perino] addressed those from the podium and suggested that that was accurate‹again, I'm taking—

MR. FRATTO: I'm not sure what was said on that. I can tell you today, though, that we have no evidence and we have no way of showing that any emails at all are missing.

Anne Weismann, the chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), one of the groups suing the Bush administration to ensure the preservation of the missing emails, called Fratto's comments "an outrage."

"There's objective evidence that [there's an email problem]," she said. "The White House is apparently making statements left and right that are contradictory with each other."

Indeed, Fratto's take on the missing emails is at odds with what his boss, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, has told the press on more than one occasion. On April 13, 2007, Perino told reporters that she "wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost" by the White House. And three days later, on April 16, she told reporters, "We are aware that there could have been some emails that were not automatically archived because of a technical issue."

While Perino's statements stop short of directly confirming the problem, an August 30, 2007 letter (PDF) from Representative Henry Waxman, the chair of the House oversight committee, to Fred Fielding, the White House counsel, sheds more light on the situation. Waxman wrote:

On May 29, 2007, Keith Roberts, the Deputy General Counsel of the White House Office of Administration, and Emmet Flood, Special Counsel to the President, briefed Committee staff on the White House e-mail system and the missing e-mails. At the briefing, Mr. Roberts informed Committee staff that the White House had discovered in 2005 that an unknown number of e-mails may not have been preserved in the White House archive, as required by the Presidential Records Act.

Fratto's comments today certainly drew the attention of Waxman's committee today, which, noting that "statements made at today’s White House press briefing contradict information provided to the Committee," scrambled to schedule a February 15 hearing to investigate White House compliance with the Presidential Records Act. Called to testify are Fred Fielding; Alan Swendiman, the director of the White House Office of Administration; and Allen Weinstein, the head of the National Archives, which is responsible for preserving presidential records.

In the coming weeks, congressional pressure could start to clarify matters. In mid-December, Waxman sent another letter (PDF) to Fielding, this one requesting "any documents relating to potential failures to archive or maintain Executive Office of the President e-mails during the Bush Administration, including documents discussing options for restoring or recovering lost e-mails." The White House has until February 1 to comply. House oversight spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot told me last night that she expects the administration will hand over the documents. If that happens, we'll know a lot more about what the administration knew about the missing emails and when it knew it. Lightfoot didn't drop any hints, but if the White House refuses Waxman's request, don't be surprised if a sternly-worded letter turns into a sternly-worded subpoena.

"Hillary: The Movie" Headed For The Supreme Court

Yesterday, a lawyer for Citizens United filed a notice with the U.S. District Court that it will be taking its challenge of the McCain-Feingold act to the Supreme Court. The conservative advocacy group has sued the Federal Election Commission to try to win approval to broadcast ads for its anti-Hillary movie without having to comply with campaign finance laws requiring the group to disclose its donors. Citizens United has argued that "Hillary: The Movie" is a documentary, not campaign propaganda, and that the ads are protected commercial speech advertising the film.

Those arguments literally got laughed out of federal court last week in a hearing on the case. Tuesday, a three-judge panel formally ruled against Citizens United, saying that, “The Movie is susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her.”

Undaunted, Citizens United has notified the court that it intends to appeal, and will be asking the Supreme Court for an expedited decision so that it could potentially air the ads during the election season. While some of the group's arguments about the nature of the film are indeed enough to get a federal judge to laugh, some of the more substantive arguments in its appeal should cause concern for campaign finance watchdogs. If Citizens United should happen to win its case, outside interest groups will be free to run all sorts of "issue ads" against political candidates during elections, without ever having to disclose who paid for them.

Clinton Supporters Fail to Block Nevada Caucus Format

The judge was like, "Whatcho want me to do about it?"

A federal judge on Thursday allowed Nevada Democrats to hold presidential voting in casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, potentially helping Sen. Barack Obama in the next round of the campaign on Saturday.

For the first time, Nevada Democrats planned to set up nine locations for Saturday's vote so casino shift workers, who are largely represented by a union that endorsed Obama, could attend caucuses and vote for a presidential candidate.

A teachers' group filed a lawsuit saying the fact that only casino workers could vote at their workplaces was unfair, but Judge James Mahan of the U.S. District Court for Nevada disagreed and rejected a temporary injunction.

[snip]

"The Democrats can set up their own rules just as the Republicans can," Judge Mahan said. "It is not up to some federal judge to come along and say, I don't like that."

The folks who brought the lawsuit are supporters of the Clinton campaign, and while its really unfortunate that they saw reducing turnout amongst the Culinary Union workers as a pathway to victory, they do have one legitimate beef. By having all the Culinary Union workers caucus together at their place of employment, they can be easily overseen in the caucus room by their bosses and union reps. Anyone who dares stand up in the caucus room and express support for Clinton or Edwards is opening themselves up to reprisals later.

An Open Letter from American Feminists (And a Raised Fist From Me)

A while back, I gave the world the finger about it's dissing of mainstream feminism for not being all things to all people on every corner in every village at every moment everywhere on the planet even as misogyny reigns unchecked. Katha Pollitt, at The Nation, agrees; we're both fed up with Cro Magnons trolling to see which feminist hasn't denounced, and single handedly ended, the atrocity of the day. She's circulating the below open letter which I proudly signed. Last count, she was at about 500 names. I hope it reaches a million. No, writing open letters doesn't save a raped woman from Sharia law in Nigeria. They just tell you to kiss off while we work on it, which is a hell of a lot more than the folks at National Review are doing. Hell no, I won't link to them.

An Open Letter from American Feminists

Columnists and opinion writers from The Weekly Standard to the Washington Post to Slate have recently accused American feminists of focusing obsessively on minor or even nonexistent injustices in the United States while ignoring atrocities against women in other countries, especially the Muslim world. A number of reasons are given for this supposed neglect: narcissism, ideological rigidity, reflexive anti-Americanism, fear of seeming insensitive or even racist. Yet what is the evidence for this apparently now broadly accepted claim that feminists don't support the struggles of women around the globe? It usually comes down to a quick scan of the home page of the National Organization for Women's website, observing that a particular writer hasn’t covered a particular outrage, plus a handful of quotes wrenched out of context.

In fact, as a bit of research would easily show, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of US feminist organizations involved in promoting women's rights and well-being around the globe -- V-Day, Equality Now, MADRE, the Global Fund for Women, the International Women’s Health Coalition and Feminist Majority, to name some of the most prominent. (The National Organization for Women itself has a section on its website devoted to global feminism, on which it denounces a wide array of practices including female genital mutilation (FGM), “honor” murder, trafficking, dowry deaths and domestic violence). Feminists at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have moved those organizations to add the rights of women and girls to their agenda. Feminist magazines and blogs-- Ms, Feministing.com, Salon.com’s Broadsheet feature, womensenews,com (which has an edition in Arabic) -- as well as feminist reporters and commentators in the mainstream media, regularly report on and condemn outrages against women wherever they occur, from rape, battery and murder in the US to the denial of women’s human rights in the developing or Muslim world.

As feminists, we call on journalists and opinion writers to report the true position of our movement. We believe that women's rights are human rights, and stand in solidarity with our sisters who are fighting for equal political, economic, social and reproductive rights around the globe. Specifically, contrary to the accusations of pundits, we support their struggle against female genital mutilation, "honor" murder, forced marriage, child marriage, compulsory Islamic dress codes, the criminalization of sex outside marriage, brutal punishments like lashing and stoning, family laws that favor men and that place adult women under the legal power of fathers, brothers, and husbands, and laws that discount legal testimony made by women. We strongly oppose the denial of education, health care and equal political and economic rights to women.

We reject the use of women's rights language to justify invading foreign countries. Instead, we call on the United States government to live up to its expressed commitment to women's rights through peaceful means. Specifically, we call upon it to:

- offer asylum to women and girls fleeing gender-based persecution, including female genital mutilation, domestic violence, and forced marriage;

- promote women's rights and well-being in all their foreign policy and foreign aid decisions;

- use its diplomatic powers to pressure its allies -- especially Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive countries in the world for women -- to embrace women's rights;

- drop the Mexico City policy--aka the 'gag rule'--which bars funds for AIDS-related and contraception-related health services abroad if they provide abortions, abortion information, or advocate for legalizing abortion;

- generously support the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which supports women's reproductive health including safe maternity around the globe, and whose funding is vetoed every year by President Bush;

- become a signatory to The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the basic UN women's human rights document, now signed by 185 nations. The US is one of a handful of holdouts, along with Iran, Sudan, and Somalia.

Finally, we call upon the United States, and all the industrialized nations of the West, to share their unprecedented wealth, often gained at the expense of the developing world, with those who need it in such a way that women benefit.

Signed,

Katha Pollitt, writer

Marge Piercy, writer

Susan Faludi, writer

Alix Kates Shulman, writer

Julianne Malveaux, President, Bennett College for Women

Anne Lamott, writer

Mary Gordon, writer

Linda Gordon, historian, NYU

Judith Ezekiel, historian, Wright State U/U de Toulouse

Jennifer Baumgardner, writer

Ruth Rosen, historian

Jane Smiley, writer

Anna Fels, MD, psychiatrist and writer

Debra Dickerson, writer/blogger, MotherJones.com

Margo Jefferson, writer

Jessica Valenti, writer/blogger, www.feministing.com

Dana Goldstein, The American Prospect

Karen Houppert, writer

Gloria Jacobs, The Feminist Press

Carole Joffe, Sociology, UC Davis

Janet Afary, Middle East Historian, Purdue University

Barrie Thorne, Chair,Gender & Women's Studies, UC, Berkeley

Catharine R. Stimpson, Dean, NYU

Lakshmi Chaudhry, writer

Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies SUNY-Old Westbury

Naomi Weisstein

Alisa Solomon,writer

Barbara Bick

Amy Swerdlow

Kathryn Scarbrough

Bea Kreloff, Drucilla Cornell, prof., political science, women's studies,comp lit, Rutgers.

Sonia Jaffe Robbins, writer/editor

Laura X, activist

Linda Stein, sculptor

Stephanie Gilmore, historian, Trinity College

Ariel Dougherty, Media Equity Collaborative, co-founder of Women Make Movies

Amie Newman, Associate editor, RH Reality check

Merle Hoffman, Choices Women’s Medical Center and On the Issues magazine

Adele M. Stan, columnist, American Prospect Online

Michelle Goldberg, writer

Agnieszka Graff, scholar, writer and activist, Warsaw, Poland

Margaret Morgenroth Gullette, Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis

Eleanor Bader, writer and educator

Eileen Boris, Hull Professor, Women's Studies UCSB

Cynthia L Cooper, "words of choice"

Jennifer Pozner, Women in Media and News

Dolores Hayden, prof, Yale

Kelli Zaytoun, English and women's Studies, Wright State U

Laura Ross, liaison, Indigenous Women's Political Caucus

Melody Berger, writer

Donna Schaper, Senior minister, Judson memorial church

Carol Sternhell, professor of journalism NYU

Mari Matsuda, law professor, PLACE TK

Michele Barry, professor of medicine and global health yale

Meredith Tax, writer, president, Women's WORLD

Estelle Freedman Robinson Professor, History, Stanford University

Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freedom from Religion foundation

Heather Nijoli Robinson, Equal Access Fund of Tennessee

Anna Clark, writer

Colleen Kelly Johnston, activist for owmen and peace

Emily Apter, literary theorist, NYU

Laura Zimmerman Co-founder, Center for New Words

Diane Wahto, Chair, Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas

Rev. Linda Pashby Kaufman, Unitarian Universalist Community Minister, Seattle,

Deanna Zandt, Media Technologist

Linda Ann Wheeler Hilton, artist and writer, Arizona

D. H. Melhem, Ph.D., poet & writer, New York City

Barbara Winslow, Women's studies and school of Ed., Bklyn College

Courtney E. Martin, Brooklyn-based writer and teacher

Lucinda Marshall, Founder, Feminist Peace Network

Jill Filipovic, feministe.us/blog

Alison Redford, homemaker & civic volunteer, Wellington, Kansas

Vickie Sandell Stangl, Wichita State University, Political Science Dept.

Meredith Michaels, philosophy dept, Smith college

Muriel Dimen, writer and Psychoanalyst, NYU

Susan Yanow, MSWReproductive Health Consultant Cambridge, MA

Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Co-author Our Bodies Ourselves

Kathleen Gerson, sociologist, New York University

Amy King, Poet and Educator, SUNY Nassau Community College

Ana Bozicevic, Poet, New York City

Debbie Rogow, Co-Director, Rethinking Sexuality Education Project, Population Council Program on Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Katherine Ellis, Rutgers

Dr. Suellen Miller, Director, Safe Motherhood Programs Women's Global Health ImperativeUCSF

Janine Jackson, program director, FAIR

Lise Vogel Professor Emerita of Sociology, Rider University

Lisa Jervis, bitch

Nora Bredes, Director, Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership

Emily Gordon, writer and editor

Sophie Pollitt-Cohen, writer and student

Naela El-Hinnawy, ethnographer

Joan D. Mandle, Colgate University, Emerita

Esther Newton Women's Studies, University of Michigan

Marti Copleman, lawyer, board member Women for Afghan Women

Liza Featherstone, journalist/author

Vivian Gornick

Dorothy C. Miller, D.S.W., Director

Flora Stone Mather Center for Women & Clinical Associate Professor Mandel School For Applied Social Sciences Case Western Reserve University

J. Goodrich, blogger, "Echidne of the Snakes"

Victoria Rosenwald, RN MPH

Sonali Kolhatkar, Co-Director of Afghan Women's Mission

Beccah Golubock Watson, Legal Momentum

Veronica I. Arreola, Ctr for Research on Women & Gender, U Ill- Chicago

Jane Mansbridge, Kennedy School of Govt

Patricia Thorpe, writer

Sheila Weller / writer

Amy Richards, Soapbox, Inc

Joanne Landy Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

Cynthia Carr, writer

Sigrid Nunez, wrier

Mary Kay Blakely, author and essayist, Missouri School of Journalism

Jennifer Ball, PhD Assoc. Prof of Economics Washburn U School of Business

Barbara R. Bergmann Professor Emerita of Economics, UMd and American U

Andrew I. Kohen, Professor of Economics & Women's Studies James Madison U

Gish Jen, writer

Laurie Stone, writer

Susan Feiner, prof econ and women's studies, USM

Elizabeth Kendall, prof, Eugene lang College

Erica Jong, poet and novelist

Atina Grossman, historian, Cooper Union

Patricia Beninato Webmaster, ImNotSorry.net

Ulla Grapard, economist, director of women's studies, Colgate University

Kay Trimberger, scholar & writer, Berkeley, CA

Dr. Sandra Morgen, Prof Women's Studies, Penn State U

Carol Anshaw, writer

Neva Goodwin, Co-director Global Development And Environment Institute, Tufts

Rosalind C. Barnett, psychologist

Winifred Breines, Professor of Sociology Northeastern University

Jan Clausen Poet, novelist

Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Prof. English, French, Comp Lit, Grad Ctr, CUNY

Lyn Mikel Brown, educator/author, founder, Hardy Girls Healthy Women.

Michele Naples, Economics, The College of New Jersey

Deborah Billings, Researcher, Ipas (www.ipas.org)

Roberta L. Salper, Women's Studies Research, Brandeis

Rickie Solinger, historian, curator

Nanette Funk, Professor of philosophy, CUNY

Kate Daniels, writer, Vanderbilt University

Leila Hessini, ipas,org

Susan Yankowitz, playwright and novelist

Lee Ann Banaszak, Political Science and Women's Studies Penn St U

Ana Victoria Soady, Chair, Modern and Classical LanguagesValdosta St U

Honor Moore, writer

Fahima Vorgetts, Director, Afghan Women's Fund

Vicky Lovell, policy researcher

Amy Erdman Farrell, Women's Studies and American Studies, Dickinson College

Brigitte Bechtold, Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for Research on Poverty, Central Michigan U

Marty Jarrell, communications director ipas

Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University, writer

Abby Scher, Political Research Associates

Deb Hoskins, PhD, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Uwisc- La Crosse

Rachel M. Brownstein, CUNY

Lisa M. Amoroso, Roosevelt College of Business Administration, board member,IMPACT Chicago

Virginia Sole-Smith, writer

Monica J. Casper, Dir, Women's and Gender Studies,Vanderbilt

Marianne T. Hill, Economist, Mississippi Center for Policy Research

Amy Reid, Assoc Prof of French/Coordinator of Gender Studies, New College of Florida

Jane O'Reilly, writer

Catherine Haustein, Department of Chemistry

Ellen Leopold, writer

Cathleen Schine, writer

Heather M. Dalmage, Director, Mansfield Institute for Social JusticeProfessor of Sociology Roosevelt U

Sarah Hernandez, Sociology, Associate Professor

Erika Munk, writer

Betsy Damon, Eco activist, artist

Joan Ferrante, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, Columbia

Vivian Stromberg, (Executive Director) MADRE

Yifat Susskind, (Communications Director) MADRE

Leora Tannenbaum, writer

Martha Thompson, Professor Emeritus, Sociology and Women's Studies. Northeastern Illinois University and Director, IMPACT Chicago

Anna Lena Phillips, poetry editor, Fringe magazine

Elizabeth R. Stark, editor, Fringe magazine

B. Ruby Rich Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

Christina Pacosz, poet, writer, retired teacher, Kansas City, Missouri

Alice K. Turner, editor/ writer

Lyndi Hewitt, Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology Research Assistant, Global Feminisms Collaborative Vanderbilt University

Claudia Angelos, prof law, NYU

Natalia Deeb-Sossa, assistant prof Sociology, UC Davis.

Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Vanderbilt Div School

Randy Albelda, economist, UMass-boston

Nicole Hollander, creator of cartoon strip Sylvia

Susan O'Malley, activist, CUNY

Nikki Keddie, Professor Emerita of History, UCLA

Julia Alvarez, Writer & Teacher

Claire Keyes, Professor EmeritaSalem State College

Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor, CUNY

Miranda Spencer, Writer

Janet Spitz PhD, Assoc. Professor of Business, Albany NY

Dorothy Allison, writer

Pamela Grossman, writer and editor

Rayna Rapp, NYU, anthropologist

Eileen Boris, historian Uc-SB

Amy Hoffman, Editor in Chief Women's Review of Books

Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, episcopal priest, executive director, Political Research Associates

Katharine Baker, Visiting Faculty Religion & PhilosophySouthwestern U

Laura Dickinson, Prof, International Human Rights Law, U Conn School of Law.

John Exdell, Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University

M. V. Lee Badgett, economist, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Carol Gilligan

Glenna Matthews, Visiting Scholar, Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley,

Marjorie C. Miller, Professor of Philosophy, Gender Studies, Asian Studies, Purchase College, SUNY

Celia Gilbert, poet

Prof. Nina Pelikan Straus, Humanities, Purchase College,SUNY.

Beverly R. Voloshin, Professor of English, San Francisco State University

Rebecca Traister, journalist

Julia Henderson, Art Editor/Webmistress, Fringe Magazine

Nancy K. Miller, English, The Graduate Center

Martha Vicinus

Eliza M. Mosher, Distinguished University Professor, Department of English University of Michigan

Margaret Willson, International director, Bahia Street

Nancy Bacon, Program director, Bahia Street

Carol Ann Dalto, Chair, Psychology, Merrimack College

Jill M. Wood, Women's Studies, Penn State University

Estelle Jelinek, Ph.D., writer, Berkeley, CA

Loretta J. Ross, National Coordinator SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective

Deirdre English, Director Felker Magazine Center Graduate School of Journalism University of California, Berkeley,

Haley Swenson, writer

Judith E. Johnson, Professor Emerita, English and Women's Studies at SUNY-Albany. Editor 13th moon press

Trude Bennett, Maternal and Child Health, UNC-Chapel Hill

Demie Kurz, Co-Director Women's Studies &The Alice Paul Center, U Penn

Su Friedrich, filmmaker, professor, Princeton University

Gillian Bell, artist and reproductive rights activist

Katie Buckland, Exec. Director ,California Women's Law Center

Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, (executive director, Pro-Choice Education Project)

Pat Schneider, Writer

Jacqui Ceballos, President - Veteran Feminists of America

Ariel Levy, writer

Bobbie Birleffi, Producer/Director

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Professor