Here is one to get you started:
This is the Presidential 'Flux Capacitor'
Set the dial to January 21, 1993,
get the Delorean up to 88 mph,
…and presto! You’ll be back in the White House again.
Have fun with it. Make sure to include your name, city, state (or country) so we can post your comment.
- David Reisner, 360° Digital Producer
Bobby Cutts Jr., surprising everyone, took the stand Monday and testified that his killing of his nine-months-pregnant girlfriend, Jessie Davis, was an accident
According to his tearful testimony, he pointed his finger in her face, and she bit it. Cutts tried to leave, but Davis grabbed his arm and told him he couldn’t. Pulling his arm away, he says, he threw his elbow back, it landed on Davis’ throat, and she fell, hard, to her death.
That bleach spot investigators found on Davis’ floor? Cutts, a former police officer, says he tried to revive her with the bleach, not cover up forensic evidence.
He loaded Davis’ body in the back of his truck and dumped it in a park, he testified. Watch the testimony
This sounds a lot like Joran van der Sloot’s recently broadcast statements. He claimed that he was fondling Natalee Holloway on an Aruban beach when she shivered and stopped breathing in his arms. Like Cutts, he didn’t call the police or get her to a hospital. Instead, he says, he enlisted a friend to dispose of her body, dumping her in the sea.
Are young women really so fragile that we spontaneously drop dead from a bump or a kiss? Are these men so morally bankrupt that their only reaction to a medical crisis is to hide a body?
Cutts’ and van der Sloot’s stories are absurdly implausible, and van der Sloot himself now says he was lying. Yet the “I didn’t do anything wrong, but then I panicked and disposed of the body” defense has worked in a recent high-profile American case.
Billionaire Robert Durst convinced a Texas jury that he shot his elderly neighbor in self-defense, and then chopped up the body and dumped it in Galveston Bay. Acquitted. The jury said it had to separate the killing and the cover-up.
Still, Cutts’ tearful testimony is unlikely to help him. Upended furniture and the disarray of Davis’ home indicate a struggle far greater than one elbow strike that hit the mark. The more he spoke yesterday, the less we liked him. He didn’t intend to leave his 2-year-old son alone for two days, he says, but he did. Cutts had the right to remain silent, but not the ability.
The case should go to the jury late Tuesday afternoon.
- Lisa Bloom, “In Session” Anchor/360° ContributorRead more Lisa Bloom blogs on “In Session”
Good morning folks!!! Another political primary day. Today is the battle is along the Potomac. Voters in DC, Maryland and Virginia will head to the voting booths. Will Barack continue his sweep? OR will Hillary rally back? AND will Huckabee continue to be a "nuisance," as some political pundits are saying.... SOOO watch CNN tonight for full coverage!!!
In Top Stories a new study out about how the U.S. military is deficient in meeting "the threat of Islamic insurgencies"...AND the steroid controversy continues...baseball player John Rocker is admiting steroid use...so we are Keeping Him Honest!!!
AND thing are looking really gloomy on the real estate front and it ain't because of sub-prime mortgage rates! If you are living in Oklahoma or Florida, you may want to move!! Folks in those states have been repeatedly hit by natural disasters over the last 30 years. AND are you living in a miserable city? There is a new study out of the worst cities to live in...so scroll down and check out What YOU will be talking about today...There are lots of headlines to get through this morning... including why Dolly Parton is postponing her tour....so grab your coffee and let's get started.... Top Stories
U.S. vs. Muslim insurgents...
The U.S. military is seriously deficient in meeting "the threat of Islamist insurgencies," says a Pentagon-commissioned study released Monday.
Outcry over U.S. marine arrest...
Condemnations rang out from several corners in Japan Tuesday after a 38-year-old U.S. Marine was accused of raping a 14-year-old local girl on the southern island of Okinawa.Terror plot...
Danish authorities have arrested several people who allegedly were plotting a "terror-related assassination."
Immigrants flee...
The signs of flight among Latino immigrants here are multiple: Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients.
A changing face...
If present trends continue, within two decades the nation’s foreign-born population will surpass the historic 19th-century peak of nearly 15 percent of all residents, according to projections released Monday.
Repeated disasters...
When it comes to bad weather — or just bad luck — some parts of the USA seem to attract disaster.
Raw Politics
What is at stake?
Presidential candidates in both parties have a lot at stake in these Potomac primaries.Coming off his sweep in five weekend contests, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois will be aiming for a political hat trick over Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
Battle along the Potomac...
Democratic presidential hopefuf Barack Obama offered himself as "something new" at a pair of spirited, arena-size rallies in Maryland yesterday, while his primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, portrayed herself as a "battle-scarred" fighter for the middle class at more intimate events held across the region on the eve of today's primaries.
Obama favored in Potomac primaries...
A new battleground looms in a state where picnickers still flock to venerated fields of Confederate glory. The campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are gearing up for today's presidential primary in Virginia, a key Southern state rife with knotty demographics and shifting party loyalties.
Bid hinges on Texas and Ohio...
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said on Monday.
New Poll: Dems happy with choices...
Democratic voters haven't settled on a nominee but are enormously excited about both their prospects. Republican voters have made a choice but aren't thrilled with him.
Crime & Punishment
L.A.P.D cannot police itself...
Los Angeles Police Department investigators routinely fail to fully investigate citizens' complaints against allegedly abusive officers, often omitting or altering crucial information in ways that help exonerate the officers, according to a report to be released today.
Ex cop takes the stand...
A former police officer accused of killing his pregnant lover sobbed on the witness stand Monday that he accidentally struck her when she wouldn't let him out of her house.
Keeping Them Honest
More Sterioid use in MLB...
John Rocker claims he flunked a drug test ordered by Major League Baseball in 2000 and that he, Alex Rodriguez and other Texas Rangers were advised by management and union doctors following a spring training lecture on how to effectively use steroids.
Medication mix up...
When Tabitha Jones picked up her stepson's medicine at a Walgreens store near Nashville in 2004, she had no way to know the pharmacy was so busy that its manager had asked for more staffing months earlier to "decrease the pharmacist's stress."
What YOU will be talking about TODAY
Dolly Parton postpones tour....
Dolly Parton’s breasts may be two of the wonders of the entertainment world, but the country music icon says they are a pain in her back.
Patty Hearst at Westminster dog show...
Far, far removed from the days when her image as a machine gun-toting revolutionary captivated a nation, Patricia Shaw Hearst was in more genteel surroundings Monday. She was tending to Diva at Madison Square Garden, petting her soft head on dogdom's biggest day.
Do you live in a miserable city?
Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate. As an added kicker you need more Superfund dollars allocated to your city to clean up contaminated toxic waste sites than just about any other metro.
I remember reading a study not too long ago that said multi-tasking was, contrary to popular belief, inefficient. I didn't believe it then but I do now.
In theory, tonight I was moderating the blog and "back rowing" the show. "Back Rowing" can include:
In practice, my control room contribution was reduced to hitting the clock. (I do think I timed out the blocks correctly!)
Fortunately, things rolled out pretty smoothly with little assistance from me. Everyone else was on their game and our wonderful director, Renee Cullen, is back from the road (where she has been directing the live debate coverage for the past several months). So the chaos was kept to a minimum, which was nice since we had a guest in the control room watching the show from behind the scenes, Miss Teen USA Katie Blair.
This live blogging is really great and thanks for your participation (the sheer volume of responses is amazing) but I think I'm going to have to choose between being blog moderator and back row guy ... I've reached my multi-tasking limit!
Maybe I'm just a single-tasker!
- Sean Yates, Sr. Producer, AC360
If you want to figure out why this superdelegate issue is so upsetting to some Democrats, you just have to take it down to the numbers.
About 3,377,000 people have voted in the states that hold Democratic primaries so far. These are voters who, unlike those in the caucus states, we can clearly count. And their votes have produced the results from which 339 delegates will effectively take their marching orders…most going to the convention to vote for Clinton or Obama.
That means, nationwide, each delegate represents the collective will of almost 10,000 voters.
And this is the part that gets people riled. Since a superdelegate gets a vote with just as much punch as a regular delegate, that means a superdelegate has the voting power of 10,000 people.
But the superdelegate does not necessarily even have to consider what any other voter wants.
Some party leaders say that’s fine: The super delegates are deeply invested in and committed to the success of their party. They can broker a deal if the race is too tight, and avoid a nasty convention battle that could leave the party in shambles.
The supers were, after all, put into place to keep the party in line with its principles; to avoid populists movements that lead to candidates in the general election who did not represent Democratic ideals.
But some voters fear the supers can also swing the race unfairly.
Look at the delegate count already, they say. More super delegates came out early to support Clinton than Obama. With their help, she is winning in the delegate count. Without them, she is behind and Obama is winning.
The harshest critics say that’s the worst kind of politics: a party machine like the old days of Tammany Hall, where the deals are made in secret and the voters’ will does not even matter. One person, one vote is not the way the nominee is chosen, even though thousands…maybe millions of Democrats went into this election thinking it was.
Some say the supers can solve it by simply mirroring the vote in their home states. Maybe. But the super delegates are inching ever closer to being the “deciders” in the Democratic race.
It’s in the numbers. So what will you do, if the nominee is ultimately decided by the party VIP’s and not directly by the voters?
–Tom Foreman, 360 Correspondent
Again, please keep your comments focused on the content and context of the live program. We’ll start posting at 10p ET and close the blog to comments at 11p ET.
Everyone expected that he would win Louisiana and probably Washington but she had a fighting chance in Nebraska and was widely seen as the frontrunner in Maine. Instead, he had blow outs in all four:
Washington 68-31
Louisiana 57-36
Nebraska 68-32
Maine 59-40
(And in the Virgin Islands, it was 92-8.)
A sweep of that magnitude, coming across the country, suggests that something big is stirring in the electorate. Perhaps the momentum that Obama was building up just before Super Tuesday has kept on growing. Perhaps that YouTube “Yes We Can” clip, which now has over 3 million views, has had a contagious effect. Clearly, Obama is connecting well in front of large crowds and on television, as we saw with his Richmond speech on Saturday night.
We will get a better handle on what is happening tomorrow in the Potomac primaries. The Clinton folks have long thought they were very competitive in Virginia - indeed, not long ago, it appeared safely in her camp. If Obama can win big there, along with Maryland and the District, the effect could be electrifying for his campaign. Certainly, the media narrative will change, recognizing that he has seized the momentum.
Can Clinton reverse the thrust on March 4 in Ohio and Texas? She has stopped his surges twice before - in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday. Both of those were near-death experiences for her campaign. So, she has shown she is resilient, full of fight, and capable of a comeback. With Maggie Williams now given full responsibility as campaign manager - an excellent choice - she could well gather her forces once again.
But as Rudy Giuliani found, it is highly dangerous for a candidate to wait... and wait... until a campaign reaches more favorable terrain. March 4 may be a long way off when measured by the emotions of a campaign. My sense is that she has made a big mistake in not contesting these intervening contests more vigorously. Yes, the delegate numbers can still work for her in the end, but psychology often trumps math in political campaigns - and right now, Obama is sparking enormous psychic energy. Let's see what happens tomorrow!
-David Gergen, Senior Political Analyst
In our California exit polling on Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton received 71 percent of Asian-American support in the Democratic primary; Barack Obama only 25 percent. That’s an almost three-to-one margin that frankly caught many of us off guard.
Stories like this are challenging. Asian-Americans are certainly not a monolithic group. Many have been here for generations; others have just arrived in the United States. They are from many different countries; In the U.S., there are more than a million people with roots in each of these countries: China, the Phillipines, India, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
With that in mind, we talked with Asian-Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown and other parts of the city. We picked Seattle because Washington caucuses were held last week, and the state has one of the largest Asian-American populations in the country. And what we found after talking to scores of people was that their responses backed up our exit polling. But why?
Political scientists of different stripes tell us many Asian-Americans, as well as Latinos who have arrived here in recent decades, are often more comfortable with what is familiar - just like many other Americans. Many of these recent arrivals fared well and remember the Clinton White House fondly. And that is a major reason Hillary Clinton has done well in this polling.
In addition, we heard something from a small minority of this minority; that they are “comfortable” with a Caucasian politician. This is NOT unique to Asian-Americans. We hear similar sentiments from people in all ethnic groups. But it is something that could have affected a portion of this vote.
There are some who have blogged on the Internet that, in reporting a story on all this for AC360 last Friday, I was trying to infer that Asian-Americans are fearful of change or African-Americans. Some seem to feel that I am being disrespectful. I would never do that. Unfortunately, there is a lack of political coverage when it comes to the Asian-American vote, a constituency that is growing more influential in this country as the years go on. I hope that as we do more stories on this constituency, there is less controversy about stories of this type. In that spirit, we will be updating this story in a special AC360 program we are doing this Friday night called “Uncovering America: Race, Gender, and Politics.” We hope you will watch.
-Gary Tuchman, 360 Correspondent
Hello, bloggers.
I hope you’re having a great afternoon. It’s time to get you caught up on some of the headlines.
On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama is aiming for more victories in tomorrow’s “Potomac Primaries”. While, Senator Hillary Clinton hopes for a rebound after shaking up her campaign staff. The democratic race could all come down to the superdelegates. Super, what? Check the link below for details.
There’s a big chill in many parts of the U.S. One city is setting a new extreme low. Bundle up.
In Crime & Punishment, the search is on for some Van Gogh & Monet paintings worth millions.
And, check out the wild stories in “What you will be talking about tonight”.Since it’s so chilly, grab that coffee, tea or hot chocolate and read the Afternoon Buzz. Let us know what you think of the headlines.
Raw Politics
Obama on a roll heading into “Potomac Primaries
Without Superdelegates Clinton Trails
Huckabee marches on despite the odds Top Stories
Brrr… U.S. city hits a record 40 below
Wildfires in Virginia, Carolinas
U.S. seeks death penalty for 9/11 suspects
Crime & Punishment
Mistrial in baby in microwave case
Van Gogh, Monet paintings stolen in $163M heist
Ex- cop: “I didn’t mean to hurt her”
What YOU will be TALKING about TONIGHT
Sex Offender wins $10 million lottery
Burglar passes out in victim’s home
Mummy Found in Renter’s Bathtub
Remember “Soccer Moms”? What about “Nascar Dads”? Or how about “Reagan Democrats” or “Security Moms”?
Every presidential election there is a new group of voters who candidates, the media and we pundits anoint the “must-have” voter for any candidate hoping to make it to the White House.
If you were to compare presidential politics to the equally fickle field of fashion (bear with me—I am going somewhere with this), a candidate’s traditional base, whether it’s unions for Democratic candidates or evangelicals for Republicans, might be it’s little black dress (so to speak): The fashion staple that they will always need to anchor the rest of their wardrobe and is supposed to never go out of style. But every couple of years a new “must-have” trend or accessory comes along that may not seem to fit in with the rest of the closet, but certainly livens things up while hanging there. Eventually though, like MC Hammer pants or jelly sandals (remember those?) one trend goes out of style, replaced by another “must-have”
accessory.
This election cycle, Independent voters have emerged as one of the “must-have” accessories for any candidate planning a walk down the general election runway. The rise in the number of voters registering as Independents is not limited to one particular racial or ethnic group, which is part of what makes the growing Independent voter movement so interesting and potentially powerful.
In Senators John McCain and Barack Obama you would be hard-pressed to find two candidates who have so little in common. One is a Democrat. One is a Republican. One is older. One is younger. One is black. One is white. One has been in the Senate for two decades. One is in his first term. One opposes the War in Iraq. One does not. One exudes heroism, while the other exudes hope. And yet somehow, some way these two completely different candidates have both sparked the interest and support of Independent voters, whose ability to influence elections has grown increasingly over the years.
In the next couple of weeks as the race for delegates continues on the Democratic side and the race for reconciliation between evangelicals and McCain continues on the Republican side, the million dollar question will be which party will be able to find a balance between the staples in their closets, and this new must-have accessory whose votes both parties will need to secure if they want to win in November.
- Kelli Goff, Political Commentator
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