2) Eliot Spitzer did violate federal laws requiring reportign of bank transactions of $10,000 or more by trying to break up his payments for prostitution into three separate payments. His bank followed the law and reported suspicious behavior.

You may know more than me, but I think it works a little different than this. Under Anti-Money Laundering (AML) legislation, banks are required to report transactions over $10,000. They are also required to report 'suspicious' transactions (a SAR), which basically means any activity deemed by the bank to be out of the ordinary, such as a one-time loan to a friend, or transfering money to the wrong account. There are numerous horror stories about frozen accounts due to AML regs. Failure to file a SAR can result in big penalties to the financial institution. Literally millions of these SARS are being generated by banks; they would rather be safe than sorry. It's now big biz to sell software to support AML activities.

If you are a privacy advocate you might be a little concerned that detailed financial information was being shared to the government without your consent and knowledge, and with a very low threshold of probable cause. Yes, they found Spitzer, but how many other private citizen's finances were reviewed to get to him?

Here's an non-definitive Wikipedia article excerpt:

Financial institutions face penalties for failing to properly file CTR (Cash Transaction Report) and SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) reports, including heavy fines and regulatory restrictions, even to the point of charter revocation. [...] Software applications effectively monitor bank customer transactions on a daily basis and, using customer historical information and account profile, provide a whole picture to the bank management. Transaction monitoring can include cash deposits and withdrawals, wire transfers, credit card activity, cheques (checks), share (securities) dealing and ACH activity.

Other Links

www.bankersonline.com/security/sar/saramlcompl.html

www.bai.org/pdf/6193_AML.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_Money_Laundering

How come Sharpton only got 10% of the SC vote in 2004? Edwards beat him over 4 to one. Edwards is a pretty white dude. That's a lot of blacks voting for the white dude.

And where is the truth in her statements:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

“I look at these guys doing it,” she had said, “and I have to tell you, it’s the guys sticking together.” -- Ferraro

All of the candidates are very lucky. There's only been 43 presidents so far in over 200 years. The rest of those statements are crap.

I would suggest getting over the reductionist view where the only things that matter are racism and sexism, pro and con. This victimology narrative is starting to get pathetic. Hillary hasn't even lost yet and she still might be the nominee and there's this drumbeat going, It's so unfair! Hillary was the victim of racism and sexism. She ran a perfect campaign. She made no mistakes. It's all somebody elses fault. Those evil rascist, sexist dudes, and the misguided masses under their spell.

Is admitting the reason Barack is winning being in part due to the fact that he is black such the tragic insult?

No, it's not an insult. And yes, some dem voters may weight his blackness over other qualities. Just like other voters weight Hillary's femaleness over other qualities. I'm cool with that. I agree with you on the above point.

But, unfortunately, it's not what Ferarro said: If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. That means all his other qualities don't mean doo-doo. That means all his experience, such as teaching constitutional law don't matter. He's only winning because of his skin color. And I think that is bullshit.

There's no reason Hillary couldn't have gone after a 50 state strategy like Obama. She could have courted the youth vote like Obama. She could have avoided making the LBJ vs. MLK comparision (which I think is merely a large blunder instead of unconditionally rascist). She could have chosen a change mandate instead of an experience and return to the good old days mandate. She could have both rejected and renounced Ferraro.