CORVALLIS, Ore. — With a hint of 5 o’clock shadow and small bags under his eyes, Oregon State Coach Craig Robinson took the basketball court on Wednesday to start a campaign that is nearly as daunting as the one he just helped to complete.

For the past 20 months, Robinson assisted his brother-in-law Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency. Robinson stumped in Iowa, gave speeches in Washington State and did interviews about his childhood on Chicago’s South Side with his younger sister, Michelle, who is married to Obama.

All that work culminated in one magical Tuesday for Robinson and his family as they ate dinner at the Obamas’ house on election night and later exchanged congratulatory hugs onstage at Grant Park in Chicago.

“I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been able to process it yet,” Robinson said less than 24 hours later as he sat on the bleachers at Gill Coliseum after practice. “It’s wild. I don’t know what to say.”

Now that the Obamas are preparing to enter the White House and Robinson can devote all his energy to his first season at Oregon State, Robinson and the president-elect can debate about whose task is tougher.

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Robinson’s players at Brown said he went out of his way to separate politics and basketball. He would walk a block from his office on Hope Street and duck into the Blue State Coffee shop to talk politics. (Jesse Agel, Brown’s new coach, said he would send Robinson a pound of Blue State Coffee, with its “drink liberally” slogan, to congratulate him.)

Read the rest of the profile here, and read an interview with Craig, which also mentions BSC, here.

Also, Craig spoke at Blue State Coffee for a “Barack the Mic” event last year. See it here.

Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.

The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.

According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.

Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.

Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.

“It is an advisory thing,” said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.

So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn’t visited since he became president in 2001.

Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury — lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.

He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.

Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys.

Read the rest of the article here.  

The defendant in a state senator’s lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He’s everywhere.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he’s trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Now, you can put a double shot of liberal politics in your latte.

Blue State Coffee, on Thayer Street, was started by the father-and-son team of Marshall and Drew Ruben of Wallingford, Conn. Blue State’s mission is to offer premier coffee with a social conscience. The owners donate 10 percent of the gross sales to four progressive causes: global warming, People for the American Way, the National Even Start Association and Democratic candidates.

Customers vote on how to allocate the proceeds by putting a wooden chip in one of four glass jars on the counter. Before too long, the public will be able to choose which causes the coffee shop supports, including a local charity.

In a riff on the classic John F. Kennedy quote, the cafe’s motto is, “Ask not what your coffee can do for you, ask what you can do with your coffee.”

As Marshall Ruben, a lawyer and confirmed liberal, said, “We felt we could deliver a terrific cup of coffee and provide a venue for political discourse and social activism.”

With names like True Blue blend and Patriot blend, the coffee touches all the crunchy, green bases: it’s organically grown, fairly traded and roasted by a Pawtucket company called New Harvest Coffee. It’s also kosher. Even the coffee cups are eco-friendly because they’re made out of processed corn, which can be composted commercially. True Blue also buys locally whenever possible, from home-grown produce to bagels.

“We’re trying to keep it personal,” said Colin Blankenship, one of the baristas. “If someone wants a mocha latte with extra syrup, we’ll make it sweeter. There’s no corporation telling us to use one shot of this and one shot of that.”

Leonard Lardaro, an economics professor at the University of Rhode Island, thinks this is an idea whose time has come.

“This is the most well-defined niche I’ve seen in a long time,” he said. “This is taking Starbucks and going five leaps further.”

The idea of a coffee house with a heart struck one Saturday morning when Drew, who is 18 and headed to Yale University, and his father were waiting in line at an upscale cafe in Wallingford. Looking at the $5 lattes, Drew turned to his father and said, “Why couldn’t we channel the money into causes we care about?”

Marshall said he would back his son if he came up with a sensible business plan. A year later, the family began selling coffee on-line. The actual coffee shop, which offers free Internet access and outdoor tables, opened a week ago. The Rubens are in business with another family, Tom Clark and his daughter, Bridie, a 20-something writer from New York.

“We named it Blue State Coffee because it represents Blue State ideals,” said Drew, a recent graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall, a prep school in Wallingford. “What sets us apart is we support good causes. You know where your money is going.”

Drew, who describes himself as a centrist, said he has always been drawn to progressive politics. At Choate, he was president of the Young Democrats and editor of The Democrat, a weekly newspaper. Last summer, he worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C. Asked if he was a Clinton Democrat, Drew said, “Which one?”

The Rubens knew they wanted to open their first store in a college town; the challenge was finding the right location.

“We came to Thayer Street and said, ‘This is it,’ ” Drew said. “I love Brown. I love the campus.”

It didn’t hurt that Drew’s mother, Carolyn Greenspan, is a Brown alumna.

“But it’s not just Brown,” Marshall added. “It’s the Rhode Island School of Design. It’s Johnson & Wales.”

Thayer Street is only the beginning. The Rubens plan to go regional, opening Blue State Coffee shops in college towns throughout New England.

Since Drew is bound for Yale, New Haven may be their next spot. Thanks to the store’s Internet business, the Rubens are getting calls from blue states like California and Michigan.

Blue State also hopes to become a hot spot for local political gatherings, from fundraisers to candidate debates. The owners plan on putting a soap box in the shop, and Marshall said that the store will host a big bash that will feature national figures from the Democratic Party.

“Nancy Pelosi knows about us,” Marshall said.

Would the Rubens ever open a coffee shop in a red state?

“Our initial idea,” Marshall joked, “is if a state turns red, we close.”

See the article on the Providence Journal’s website here.

Live Earth will stage official concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London; Aussie Stadium in Sydney; Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg; Makuhari Messe in Tokyo; the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai; and HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg.

You can watch the Live Earth concerts live at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com.

Visit the project’s official website to learn more.

However, according to the six most recent polls, he still trails Hillary by at least 10% for the Democratic nomination. Hillary’s campaign expects to have raised about $27 million this quarter.

Both Hillary and Obama are beating Giuliani, the Republican front-runner, by several percentage points.

Read more analysis of Obama’s fundraising success here.

After reading the letter, President Bush denied that the United States practices torture.

The letter began, “We have been told that we represent the best and brightest of our nation. Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to voice our convictions. We do not want America to represent torture.”

All of us at Blue State Coffee applaud the Presidential Scholars for their courage and conviction.

Read the CNN article here.

Watch three of the Scholars discussing the letter on CNN here.