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OAXACA, Mexico — Gunmen shot dead a local leader of Mexico's largest leftist party in the southern state of Oaxaca where at least nine people were killed in political violence last year, police said today. Democratic Revolution Party official Fructuoso Pedro Garcia was shot with nine bullets in the main square of Santo Domingo Morelos, a seaside town about 150 miles south of Oaxaca's colonial state capital, said state police commander Alberto Guzman. The killing occurred last Wednesday, three days after Garcia announced he would run for mayor of Santo Domingo Morelos. Guzman said the killing appeared to be for...

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Khawam not only tapped her military connections in her custody battle but also invoked broader contacts as she sought greater access to her son. In emails with her ex-husband, Khawam wrote that Senator Kerry asked about the son and whether he would be coming to Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 2012. She also wrote that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island invited the son to a summer clambake in the state, and that the son "would greatly appreciate attending this family clambake." Included in the court file is what appears to be a handwritten note from Whitehouse, writing, "I...

The firm headed by Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist, Mark Penn, is helping run incumbent President Victor Yushchenko’s campaign. Meanwhile Paul Manafort, whose firm worked on Republican John McCain’s losing effort, and Tad Devine, a top strategist on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, are consulting for Victor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian frontrunner in the polls.

WASHINGTON (AP)--A South Korean man who met with John Kerry's fund-raisers to discuss creating a new political group for Korean-Americans was an intelligence agent for his country, raising concerns among some U.S. officials that either he or his government may have tried to influence this fall's election. South Korean officials and U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Chung Byung-Man, a consular officer in Los Angeles, actually worked for South Korea's National Intelligence Service. A spokesman for the South Korean consulate office said Chung was sent home in May amid "speculation" he became involved with the Kerry campaign and...

Today's (2/17) Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by a CIA intelligence officer, Guillermo Christensen, entitled Un-Intelligence. The article exposes the self-serving attack on President Bush and the War in Iraq by a fellow CIA officer named Paul Pillar in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Pillar is now being lionized by the left for his anti-Bush screed - but you first learned about him here at To The Point in October 2004. Porter At The Pass revealed that Paul Pillar and his left wing cabal at the CIA, which I named The Pillar Gang, was conducting a covert campaign...

Let me add this to Byron’s fine story today: The New York Times has never investigated – and never had its ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, investigate – this extraordinarily newsworthy question: Was the Grey Lady manipulated by a UN official, Mohammed ElBaradei, as part of a plot to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election?

memory hole reminder The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry’s group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2004/10/27207/#615wufvA5oZXKuWK.99

The political scientist who applies the ‘rational choice’ theory of economics to voters says there was a method to the GOP’s primary madness. Go to the source:

On a busy Thursday that included meeting with Cuban-American leaders and encouraging Miami Dade College students to embrace diversity, Secretary of State John Kerry waded into the Carnival Corp. controversy, criticizing enforcement of a Cuban decree that prevents those born on the island from traveling to and from Cuba by sea. “The United States government will never support, never condone discrimination. And the Cuban government should not have the right to enforce on us a policy of discrimination against people who have the right to travel,” Kerry said during an interview with the Miami Herald and CNN en Español in...

John Kerry Threatens to Kill President Bush on Bill Maher http://feedblog.org/2006/10/08/john-kerry-threatens-to-kill-president-bush-on-bill-maher/ The recent episode of Bill Maher was awesome. Robin Williams and Richard Clarke were great but what I found really interesting was when John Kerry seemingly threatens to kill President Bush (which is a crime). (Maher asks Kerry what he got his wife for her birthday) kerry: I did not get her catchup *laughs* maher: … you could have gone to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone. *laughs* kerry: I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone. *laughs* (You...

Unfortunately, it appears that when Elizabeth Edwards speaks some people actually listen. This sad fact might be innocuous enough if the aspiring Second Lady were trading parenting or dieting tips. But instead semi-reformed former Deaniacs and Kucinich Kids seem to have latched onto Edwards' recent promise to a worried supporter that post-election riots will not wrack the nation -- so long as the Kerry-Edwards ticket walks away with it. The suggestion, of course, is that there indeed will be riots if John F. Kerry's boyhood dreams of ascending to his rightful position as ruler of the universe are squashed by...

This is unbelievable - the Rats are already at it. Just consider it a "heads up" for us.

Searching old newspapers is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have tried to use them many times to shed light on current events - or to inform readers about how the past is prologue to our very interesting present-day quandaries. Recently, I came across a syndicated column from November 1979 that seemed to point 30 years into the future toward an obscure campaign issue that arose briefly in the 2008 presidential campaign. Though by no means definitive, it provides an interesting insight, at least, into how Chicago politics intersected with the black power movement and Middle Eastern money at...

We live in a weary age of fable. The latest Hollywood mythology is entitled "Truth." But the film is actually a fictionalized story about how CBS News super-anchor Dan Rather and his "60 Minutes" producer supposedly were railroaded by corporate and right-wing interests into resigning. In reality, an internal investigation by CBS found that Rather and his "60 Minutes" team -- just weeks before the 2004 election -- had failed to properly vet documents of dubious authenticity asserting that a young George W. Bush had shirked his duty as a Texas Air National Guard pilot. The fabulist movie comes on...

ARLINGTON -- Bush-Cheney '04 today announced the members of its Debate Negotiations Team.  The team, lead by James A. Baker, III, will represent Bush-Cheney '04 in negotiations of the terms of the presidential debates between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry and between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards.     "We are honored that Secretary Baker will lead negotiations on behalf of our campaign.  I am confident that he and the other seasoned members of our team will conduct negotiations in a thoughtful manner to ensure a robust debate of the critical issues facing our country," said...

As soon as John Kerry announced his choice of John Edwards as his running mate last week, the contrast was unavoidable. This autumn, Edwards, a telegenic, bubbly lawyer who looks 40, will go up against Big Daddy Cheney, the bald, dour, snarling vice-president whose most recent public pronouncement was to tell a leading Democratic senator to “go f*** yourself”. Edwards is a Southerner from a modest background, but he is also a member of the new class — a multi-millionaire trial lawyer with a fiercely independent career woman for a wife. Cheney is from Wyoming, one of the most beautiful...

Given Jon Kerry's now front running status, I thought it would be important to go back and look at his immediate post 911 comments on Fox News Sunday. He rolled out the classic blame America line and implied we were contributory in provoking attacks by our hostility and policies that alienated people. Here's the interview transcript: SNOW: Senator Kerry, earlier on the broadcast -- I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. Earlier on the broadcast, Attorney General Ashcroft was talking about a series of changes he thinks we need to do to improve our domestic vigilance. You...

Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis in 2004. Republicans try to regulate fannie mae and freddie mac without success.

In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could...