The good news is no one was hurt. The odd news is the disparate versions about the mishap.

First, ABC News: The headline is "Obama's Plane Strikes Parked Plane on Runway"

From the text of the article:

At 2:45 a.m. Central Time, the Gulfstream 2 plane that carried Obama, nine other passengers and two crew members struck a parked Cessna 208 general aviation plane, which can carry 10 to 12 passengers.

There was minor damage to the wings of both aircraft, although no one on either of the planes was injured.

It then gives this background:

Before leaving his Las Vegas event that evening, Obama commented that he only had one hour to speak to the crowd, so his pilot wouldn't get "cut off" and so he wouldn't get in trouble with his wife. Obama will be in Chicago today, enjoying a prescheduled day off with his family.

Compare The Swamp, from the Chicago Tribune:

More....

There are still three contenders for the Democratic nomination. The third, John Edwards, hasn't been getting much press lately.

He's been campaigning in South Carolina, reminding people he was born there and understands their problems. A few hundred people turned out to hear him at one event today. As to being behind in the polls, he says:

....he was in fourth place at this time in 2004, and went on to win the state.

I've received a few e-mails asking me when the blog is going to resume coverage of crime and injustice issues. A typical complaint:

There are civil liberties violations, judicial
decisions, the conviction and death of the
innocent...Isn't that worth a little discussion?

Here's the response I just sent to the sender of the most recent one.

In the past two days, I've written posts about the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo detentions and the ACLU's "close Guantanamo" campaign, yesterday's federal court decision throwing out four detainees' lawsuits against Rumsfeld and other military officials, Marion Jones being sentenced to 6 months for lying about steroid use, O.J. Simpson's arrest and jailing pending a bail revocation hearing, a federal judge's decision to stop a planned deportation to Egypt because of possible torture there, delays in implementing the Real ID Act, a PA exonerated death row inmate who will receive $4 million compensation, and the Supreme Court oral arguments in the Voter ID law case.

I don't think I've ever left the topics of crime and injustice. There's just additional coverage of the primaries now, because it's primary season.

Suggestion: If you think the coverage is all political, just scroll down the front page of 15 posts and if you want more, click on the link to the previous 15 posts. You'll see it is not. We just write a lot here.

This really doesn't bother me. Not nearly so much as thinking Rudy Giuliani could get the Republican nomination.

If Mr. Huckabee can continue to galvanize evangelicals around his novel message while attracting other Republicans and perhaps independents, he will do more than advance his own campaign. He will also challenge the establishment of the Christian conservative political movement.

Young evangelicals are not only flocking to Huckabee but using grass-roots and net-roots to fundraise for him.

In Michigan, the Huckabee campaign had spent no money, hired no staff and had no office until last Wednesday, six days before the primary. But Gary Glenn, a conservative Christian advocate based in Midland, Mich., has been leading an informal effort to turn out evangelical voters. Some pollsters expect them to make up as much as 40 percent of the state’s primary voters this year. [More...]

Tristero at Digby's Hullabaloo goes off on Mike Huckabee today for his Wayne Dumond pardon. It's in the news again because of an anti-Huckabee ad by a 527 group.

Wayne Dumond's attorney, John Wesley Hall, who writes as Last Night in Little Rock at TalkLeft and I have taken a different view of the case from a legal perspective. We have provided the legal grounds upon which Huckabee might have believed Dumond should have been released -- and the argument that Huckabee succombed to anti-Clinton forces.

• Mike Huckabee's Tangled Web
• Huckabee and Wayne Dumond: Interview With Dumond's Attorney
  
• Huckabee and Dumond: Succumbing to the Anti-Clinton Zealots

And then, there's Mike Huckabee's Other Pardons. As I wrote there,

[More...]

In a significant, far-reaching, unanimous California Court of Appeals decision Friday, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that police officers cannot enter a person's home without a warrant, even if they personally observe people smoking marijuana in the house and smell the marijuana being smoked. The decision was ordered to be published. The case is People v. Hua and you can read the decision here (pdf).

Exigent circumstances to make a warrantless entry to seize the marijuana before it is smoked does not trump the Fourth Amendment, where the officers have no knowledge that any crime is taking place other than possession of 28.5 grams or less of marijuana, which is a nonjailable offense. The opinion cites the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Welsh v. Wisconsin.

This is the best and the strongest California appellate decision upholding the legislative intent of George Moscone's landmark marijuana decriminalization bill enacted in 1975, with NORML as the chief sponsor of that legislation. It is the first such decision which protects the rights of marijuana smokers not to have their homes invaded by the police without a warrant, merely because the officers know -- not suspect, but know -- that the occupants of the home are smoking marijuana inside.

Congrats to defense lawyer Gordon Brownell who argued the case.

Sully caught some dissent for his Obama support:

You write that Obama is "a pragmatic liberal," that "his judgments in the past have been largely practical and reasonable," and that he is neither "an ideologue" nor "an excessive partisan." And I, too, really want to believe this. But then I always come back to the John Roberts vote. . . . [H]e received "Yea" votes from both "pragmatic" Democrats like Lieberman, Jeffords, and Dodd, as well as principled liberals like Leahy, Feingold, Levin, and Kohl. Only the rank partisans cast "no" votes, and Obama was in that camp.

Not to worry:

It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds. And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no.

See? Obama did not really want to vote against Roberts. He was just pandering. Not a problem.

I'm not sure why journalist Sidney Blumenthal's DUI arrest is worth this much attention, but it's gone from the Nashua Telegraph to the Associated Press to Newsweek .

Blumenthal, an unpaid senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was arrested in Nashua on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and charged with aggravated DWI, according two members of the Nashua police force.

The aggravated part stems from his alleged speeding, 70 mph in a 30 mph. Blumenthal told the officer he was trying to find his way back to his hotel.

Blumenthal, a journalist and author currently working as a senior fellow for the New York University Center on Law and Security, was a gracious arrestee. “I asked if he was here with a campaign. He said he was here with Clinton," Masella said. “Other than that we certainly suspected him of DWI, he was a perfect gentleman."

After a series of, at best, clumsy, remarks from Clinton supporters and surrogates, and even a misunderstood comment from Bill Clinton, the Clintons have done the right thing and addressed the festering sore in the campaign. Bill Clinton appeared on Al Sharpton's radio show:

In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president. “There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”

In addition, Hillary Clinton addressed her NH comments about Martin Luther King and LBJ:

"You know," she continued, "I was inspired by Dr. King when I was a young girl. I considered him one of my heroes, a global symbol, an icon of everything that is the best about America and he worked his entire life to make the changes that we enjoy today so I hope that this kind of unfortunate political activity really just ceases because I don't think this is what we want this election to be about."

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the highest ranking African American in the Congress, had the best reaction in my opinion:

On Friday evening, Mr. Clyburn, who is traveling overseas, issued a statement saying he intended to remain neutral in the early race. . . . “I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use,” Mr. Clyburn said “This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination.”

(Emphasis supplied.) I thought the reaction from the Obama campaign was a bit disappointing:

“Voters have to decide for themselves what they think of this,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declining to discuss the matter further.

I would have preferred that the Obama campaign agree with and take to heart Rep. Clyburn's comment. But politics is politics.

This doesn't surprise me. It's another example of not knowing where Barack Obama really stands on various issues.

The 60,000 member Nevada Culinary Workers' Union has endorsed Barack Obama. Obama says he supports gaming in Nevada. But,

As an Illinois state senator, Obama reportedly questioned the use of gaming as a tool for economic development in his state. In 1999, he voted against a bill that expanded gaming there, while in 2003 he voted for a bill supported by the gaming industry that loosened regulations.

As of now, the feds have outlawed internet gaming. They also control Indian casinos. While some will say Obama's thoughts on gaming are irrelevant since besides these two facets, gambling laws are left to the states, I'm not so sure. There will be continued efforts federally to allow internet gaming.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, in a CNN interview in November(video here), said the candidates' positions on internet gaming could be an issue:[More...]

In the wake of the Nevada Culinary Workers' Union endorsement of Barack Obama, and the Nevada Democratic party's creation of at-large precincts inside Las Vegas strip hotels, the Nevada Teachers' Union and six Nevada voters have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to ban the Democratic Party from holding the newly created caucuses.

The suit alleges that the newly created voting places inside hotels violates the "one person, one vote rule" and equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment by creating at-large precincts based solely on employment. A copy of the complaint is here (pdf.)

The lawsuit argues that the Nevada Democratic Party’s decision, decided late last year, to create at-large precincts inside nine Las Vegas resorts on caucus day violates the state’s election laws and creates a system in which voters at the at-large precincts can elect more delegates than voters at other precincts. The lawsuit employs a complex mathematical formula to show that voters at the other 1,754 precincts would have less influence with their votes.

As to the party's decision to establish the precincts inside hotels:

The at-large precincts are being established because thousands of hotel workers cannot leave work to participate in the midday caucuses in their home precincts.

More...

Now this is a predictable development as Ben Nelson is the king of bipartisanship, voting with Republicans more than any other Democrat:

Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson plans to make an announcement on Saturday morning that his spokesman said has national implications.

Again, the national implications for me are not positive for Obama, they are negative. I am glad that Ben Nelson is a Democrat and coming from Nebraska, I doubt we could get someone better, but Nelson's views are NOT what I want for the Democratic Party. It wil be interesting to see how Nelson explains his support for Obama. I imagine the reachout unity schtick will be the explanation. I personally do not want that for the Democratic Party. Remember, Ben Nelson endorsed Joe Lieberman as an INDEPENDENT in the Connecticut Senate race in 2006.
Update [2008-1-12 13:15:14 by Big Tent Democrat]: Uh Oh:

Nelson, a popular moderate in largely Republican Nebraska, said Obama has "the greatest potential to ending the bitterness and poisonous atmosphere in Washington." Nelson said Obama's victory speech in Iowa was an effort to reach out to Democrats, independents and "enlightened Republicans," and that Obama epitomizes what Nelson has tried to do in Washington. Obama is the "prototype of what we need today," Nelson said.

Ay yay yay.