Clintons Have Enemies List Want Revenge Against "Traitors"

This is typical of the Clinton mafia. They are thugs who happen to be politicians. Bill and Hillary are Bonnie and Clyde of American politics. The press seems not really comprehend that fact:

Mr. McAuliffe, who knows of Mr. Band’s diligent scorekeeping, emphasized that “revenge is not what the Clintons are about.” The accounting is more about being practical, he said, adding, “You have to keep track of this.”

Mr. Band, who declined to comment, is hardly alone in tallying those considered to have crossed the former candidate or the former president in recent months by supporting Mr. Obama. As the Obama bandwagon has swelled, so have the lists of people Clinton loyalists regard as some variation of “ingrate,” “traitor” or “enemy,” according to the associates and campaign officials, who would speak only on condition of anonymity.

Philippe Reines, a spokesman for both Clintons, said neither kept any specific catalog of those believed to have wronged them. “There is no list,” Mr. Reines said.

The lists maintained by supporters tend to be less formal documents than spoken diatribes, with offenders’ names spat forth in rants, gripe sessions and post-mortems.

Several names and entities are common among various list makers. The lineup invariably begins with A-list members like Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico; Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the House Democratic whip; Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Clinton’s lawyer in his impeachment and trial; David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist; Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri; and several Kennedys. Some members of the Democratic Party’s rules committee, the state of Iowa and the caucus system in general are also near the top.

The news media have already focused on some list entries, including the online gossip purveyor Matt Drudge (who had the nerve to show up at Mrs. Clinton’s departure speech on Saturday), Todd S. Purdum of Vanity Fair (the author of a recent profile of Mr. Clinton) and the cable network MSNBC (whose hosts Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are charter list members, Clinton associates said).

The lists are also reported to include lesser-known Obama-supporting members of Congress (for whom the Clintons campaigned), former ambassadors (appointed by Mr. Clinton) or Clinton White House officials turned Obama advisers (like Anthony Lake, a former national security adviser, and Susan Rice, a former White House and State Department official).

These are people who should know better than to ask the former president or first lady for a job recommendation for a son-in-law.

Prominent list entries tend to be philosophical about their status. “When you’re on the losing end of a campaign, your sense of victimization is higher,” said Joe Andrew, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (appointed by Mr. Clinton) who joined the lists after he switched his superdelegate allegiance from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama just before the primary in his home state, Indiana.

Mr. Richardson, the former energy secretary and United Nations ambassador under President Clinton who endorsed Mr. Obama after leaning toward Mrs. Clinton, said, “I know they’re unhappy, but I’ve been on these lists before.”

While Mrs. Clinton has a short list of people who disappointed her, Mr. Clinton, who reportedly has an encyclopedic memory of all the people he has helped, employed or appointed over the years, apparently has a far longer one, the campaign officials said.

Federal Reserve Chairman may Raise Interest Rates to Stop Inflation

If the Fed raises interest rates to stop inflation that will worsen the recession. It's been tried before in the 70s and 80s and always led to a downturn in the economy:

Ramping up his tough anti-inflation talk, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is raising expectations on Wall Street and elsewhere that the central bank could boost interest rates sooner than anticipated if high oil and food costs threaten to spur a broader bout of spiraling prices.

Over the past week, Bernanke has been sounding the alarm ever louder about the threat of inflation.

In his latest remarks on Monday evening, Bernanke played down the May spike in the nation's unemployment rate, saying the danger that the economy has fallen into a "substantial downturn" has faded.

At the same time, Bernanke sent a fresh warning that the Fed will be on heightened alert against inflation dangers, especially any signs that investors, consumers and businesses think prices will keep going up and change their behavior in ways that will aggravate inflation.

The Fed "will strongly resist an erosion of longer-term inflation expectations, as an unanchoring of those expectations would be destabilizing for growth as well as for inflation," Bernanke said.

The Fed chief and his colleagues have been signaling that the Fed's rate-cutting campaign, started in September, is probably over given mounting concerns about inflation. And, little by little, Bernanke is preparing people for the prospects of higher rates down the road.

Christian Leaders meet Privately with Obama

This is another reason why McCain will lose in November. The religious right doesn't like the Republican nominee and are sympathetic to the more religious Obama:

Barack Obama discussed Darfur, the Iraq war, gay rights, abortion and other issues Tuesday with Christian leaders, including conservatives who have been criticized for praising the Democratic presidential candidate.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, a prominent black clergyman who heads a Dallas megachurch, said Obama took questions, listened to participants and discussed his "personal journey of faith."

The discussion "went absolutely everywhere," Jakes told The Associated Press, and "just about every Christian stripe was represented in that room."

Jakes, who does not endorse candidates and said he also hopes to meet with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said some participants clearly have political differences with Obama. The senator's support for abortion rights and gay rights, among other issues, draws opposition from religious conservatives. Some conservatives have criticized Jakes for praising Obama.

Bush Threatens Iran Over Nuclear Program, Regrets Iraq War Tough Talk

Bush, and his neocon handlers, have never given up their plan to bomb Iran. It still might happen but it looks like it is less likely. The Europeans won't help. They are keeping their distance from a radioactive U.S. President:

President Bush threatened Iran on Wednesday with more sanctions if it fails to stop enriching uranium and said all options were on the table to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Bush, who met German Chancellor Angela Merkel north of Berlin during a week-long tour of Europe, is pressing allies to agree new punitive measures against Iran.

While Europeans have voiced support for such a move, they are also looking past Bush, whose presidency ends in January.

"Both the chancellor and my first choice of course is to solve this diplomatically," Bush told a joint news conference with Merkel.

But he added: "All options are on the table," a reference to the threat of military action to stop Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at making atomic bombs. "The message to the Iranian government is very clear," Bush said.

It is ironic that he is talking trash with Iran because he now admits that the same language he used prior to the Iraq war was a mistake:

Bush remains unpopular in western Europe more than five years after he clashed with Germany, France, Russia and others over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

He told reporters in Meseberg he had no regrets about going to war to oust Saddam Hussein but admitted he could have been smarter in making the case for the U.S.-led invasion.

"I could have used better rhetoric to indicate that one, we tried to exhaust diplomacy in Iraq, and two, that I don't like war," Bush said. "But, no, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision."