Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas  —  One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.  —  Robert Malley told The Times …

Rahm Emanuel: Obama Is Our Presumptive Nominee  —  One of the most influential (and thus far subdued) voices in the Democratic primary all but declared the contest over on Friday morning.  —  “At this point, Barack is the presumptive nominee,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel during the New Yorker's magazine conference.

Sen. Clinton and the Campaign  —  There is a lot of talk that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now fated to lose the Democratic nomination and should pull out of the race.  We believe it is her right to stay in the fight and challenge Senator Barack Obama as long as she has the desire and the means to do so.

John McCain called out by Jed Bartlet's aides  —  JERSEY CITY, N.J. — It turns out that hobnobbing with liberal blogger Arianna Huffington and the cast of NBC's “The West Wing” on the left coast can be a risky proposition for a Republican with White House ambitions.

Killing by the numbers  —  In 2007 elite U.S. snipers executed an unarmed Iraqi prisoner in cold blood.  Have the insidious tactics that led to atrocities in Vietnam reemerged in Iraq?  —  Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an Iraqi vegetable farmer, walked down to the ramshackle pump house along the banks of the Euphrates.

Damsel of Distress  —  This is an amazing story.  The Democratic Party has a winner.  It has a nominee.  You know this because he has the most votes and the most elected delegates, and there's no way, mathematically, his opponent can get past him.  Even after the worst two weeks of his campaign …

NMI EXCLUSIVE: Count one more superdelegate for Barack Obama  —  New Mexico Democratic superdelegate Laurie Weahkee announced today she's backing Barack Obama.  —  SANTA FE — If Sen. Barack Obama needs a mere 170 more delegate votes to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination outright, he just got one vote closer.

Obama Now Takes The Lead in Superdelegates Too  —  ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton's support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate.  —  Sen. Obama, D-Ill., picked up two superdelegates …

Gallup Daily: Obama Not Yet Pulling Away  —  Democratic nomination preferences remain evenly divided  —  PRINCETON, NJ — According to Gallup Poll Daily tracking, Democratic voters remain closely divided in their presidential nomination preferences, with 48% favoring Barack Obama and 46% backing Hillary Clinton.

Thinking About November  —  The fight for the Democratic nomination seems to be winding down.  It's not completely over, but the odds now overwhelmingly favor Barack Obama.  —  Assuming that Mr. Obama is the nominee, he'll lead a party that, judging by the usual indicators …

Kennedy: No veep slot for Clinton  —  It's fun to think about, but there are so many obstacles, and Ted Kennedy isn't buying, he said on Bloomberg Television's “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” which airs this weekend. … Ouch.

Republicans vote against Mother's Day.  —  On Wednesday, the House took up the seemingly uncontroversial H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day.”  The resolution initially passed 412 to 0, until Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) rose in protest:

The Conservative Revival  —  For years, American and British politics were in sync.  Reagan came in roughly the same time as Thatcher, and Clinton's Third Way approach mirrored Blair's.  But the British conservatives never had a Gingrich revolution in the 1990s or the Bush victories thereafter.

Bill Clinton Strikes Again: He Heatedly Argues With A Voter (UPDATED)  —  They must have run out of duct tape at Home Depot — or Hillary Clinton's advisers must believe that an angry Bill Clinton arguing with a female voter who interrupted him in West Virginia is going to win over people who don't already support Hillary Clinton.

IRAN'S WEAPONS....Tina Susman of the LA Times reports that Iranian involvement in Iraq's civil war may not be everything it's been cracked up to be: … This item only showed up on the LAT's Iraq blog, not in a regular news piece.  If it weren't for the blog, I wonder if we ever would have heard of this?

Obama's Faulty Tax Argument  —  As the presidential campaign heats up, a key issue is whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts, which expire in 2011.  John McCain wants to make the tax cuts permanent.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to let the rates rise.

Bernie Ward admits to child porn in plea deal  —  (05-08) 18:49 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Bernie Ward, the most prominent liberal voice on Bay Area talk radio for more than two decades, admitted Thursday to distribution of child pornography by e-mail in a plea deal that will send him to federal prison for at least five years.

Obama Needs a History Lesson  —  In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.  —  In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: