Will Obama’s Secret Deal with Edwards Be Revealed?

Larry Johnson of NOQUARTER asks whether or not the Obama Campaign may have used information about Edwards affair to secure his endorsement. The following is reposted from his website: More...

On a personal level I have the greatest empathy for Elizabeth Edwards. John? Well, the revelation of the affair has not exactly boosted his political prospects. The real salience of this matter is whether or not the Obama campaign knew about it or used the information to secure Edward’s endorsement.

Let’s look back to the day after the West Virginia primary. Hillary had drubbed Obama, garnering 67 percent of the vote. So what did Obama promise John Edward to get his endorsement on that day? Attorney General? You can bet the house that Obama promised Edwards a cabinet post for his well timed endorsement. Whatever promises were made, Edwards is toast.

I don’t care whether John Edwards is the father of an illegitimate child. That’s a private matter and something he must sort out with his wife and his paramour. But as far as dealing with Obama, that’s something we have a right to know. Will Edwards now come clean and tell us what Obama promised him. That’s dirtier than a sordid little affair in my book.

*ACTION* Act Now - Send Letter to Hawaii Attorney General

Article from No Quarter

SAMPLE LETTER

Mark Bennett, Attorney General
425 Queen Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

Telephone: 808-586-1500
Fax: 808-586-1239

E-Mail: hawaiiag@hawaii.gov

Attorney General Bennett,

This letter requests the attention of your office in the investigation of Barack Obama’s birth certificate. More...

In June, Sen. Obama published an image of a Hawaii Certification of Live Birth (COLB) on his campaign website next to the words “the truth about Barack’s birth certificate.” It is still there (see http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/birthcert).

Since that time, at least two forensics and documents experts have concluded that this image of a COLB, proffered by Sen. Obama as his true birth certificate, is a forgery (references below). Because these experts are working with an Internet image rather than an actual paper document — their work has been highly technical and difficult to document.

As you well know, the falsification of COLB-style forms is relatively simple because of technological advancements in digital and computer applications. The very existence of the computer-generated black block where the Certification Number should be is suspect and, in accordance with the document’s own language about alterations, would invalidate the certificate. For this reason alone, investigation is warranted.

While the two experts (combined 50+ years of relevant experience) differ somewhat on the means involved in performing the forgery, they are both unwavering in their conclusion that the COLB on Obama’s website is fake. Because of the intimidation and threats that Obama’s critics face, these experts have thus far remained anonymous. However, your office should have other means of verifying the authenticity of their reports, and possibly you could consult with them upon request under appropriate conditions.

Researchers believe that Sen. Obama’s birth records in Hawaii may reveal a different legal name, perhaps as a result of an adoption and subsequent Indonesian citizenship, and that Sen. Obama may be intentionally concealing these facts from the electorate.

As Attorney General of the State of Hawaii, please investigate the possible forgery of a Hawaii Certification of Live Birth, and report your findings to the public immediately. In a few weeks, the Democratic National Convention will decide whether Sen. Obama will be that Party’s official nominee for U.S. President.

If there is information about Sen. Obama’s truthfulness related to his birth and citizenship, it is in the public’s interest that such information be fully disclosed without delay.

I look forward to your response to this request for investigation.

Sincerely,

XXXX
The work of expert “Ron Polarik” (computer and documents specialist: 20+ years experience): http://polarik.blogtownhall.comhttp://noquarterusa.net/blog/?s=Techdude

The work of expert “Techdude” (forensics examiner 25+ years experience): http://noquarterusa.net/blog/?s=Techdude

Watch the Ego, O

By Rich Lowry

It's almost as if they take pride in being ignorant," Barack Obama mused the other day, blasting Republicans for ridiculing his exhortation to the nation to make sure its tires are properly inflated.

Ah, behold the open-mindedness and cross-partisan understanding. Remember two years ago, when Obama was only a media darling and not yet The Anointed One? More...

Back then, his appeal was the extraordinary sensitivity he had for the views of others. His best-selling campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope," was carefully unaudacious in its on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand weighing of the issues of the day, giving the impression that nothing pained him so much as not being able to agree with the other side, though he thoroughly understood and respected its arguments.

That iteration of Obama was tossed under the bus long ago (no word on whether the tires were adequately inflated). It's been replaced by an Obama who - between pauses gazing regally into the middle-distance during his orations - betrays a dismissive contempt for all differences of opinion.

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face," he said, responding to a John McCain attack ad.

Nobody does? Are all those people who vote Republican simply delusional? Or are they pretending to believe things that they really don't to conceal unseemly motivations - power-hunger, bitterness, racism?

The most elemental act of political civility is to concede the good motives of your opposition. Obama lately can't even muster that.

Of course, sharp elbows will inevitably be thrown in a hotly contested election, but it's no accident that Obama's comments reading his opposition out of polite company (or almost entirely out of existence) came in response to mockery.

Obama is now such a puffed-up figure that he's vulnerable to the pinprick of ridicule.

The most devastating hits against him in the Democratic primaries were made by "Saturday Night Live," which made fun of him as an earnest empty suit propped up by a fawning media. Having failed to get much traction against Obama heretofore, the McCain campaign scored recently with a pointed but lighthearted ad comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and the distribution of tire gauges to mock his tire-pressure comments.

"They're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent," Obama said of the tire gauges, suggesting that the making-fun particularly bothered him. Of the Spears/Hilton ad, Obama complained: "They got me in an ad with Paris Hilton. You know, [I] never met the woman."

As if the McCain campaign were literally suggesting that he and Paris coordinate on their Sidekicks about what clubs they're going to frequent after a long day of campaigning. (Hilton, in contrast, got the joke and went up with a Web ad lampooning McCain that was defter and more effective than Obama's earnest plaint.)

It has to be hard for Obama to maintain a sense of proportion. First, it's become Democratic dogma that, in reply to any Republican attack, a Democratic candidate has to hit back twice as hard. This makes it impossible to calibrate a response - the only option becomes the nuclear option. Second, given the idolatry of the press and his most fervent supporters, Obama would need prodigious reserves of humility to keep from taking himself too seriously.

On the question of tire pressure, he was wrong when he said that properly inflating tires would save enough gas to make up for whatever oil we might get from more offshore drilling. Only an estimated 27 percent of cars have underinflated tires, and having properly inflated tires saves at most only 3 percent on gas consumption, so the number gets quite small.

Obama's estimate of an overall savings of 3 percent to 4 percent on gas consumption is wildly optimistic. But it's his critics who are ignorant (and proud of it!).

The new Obama is displaying the audacity of haughty.

"The Story of O"

Reposted here form the LondonAmerican

Just when you thought Obots and their cult couldn't possibly get any creepier, they up the ante and prove us all wrong. The latest unsavoury symbol of the Oborg's embrace of the Leaderprizip has just been unveiled: the special "Obama movement salute."

Essentially a new-age remix of the old school Roman Salute, the Oborg version replaces the austerity of its 1930's German predecessor with a more "inclusive" feeling. Instead of a Nazi fanatic holding a single arm straight out and ahead, the Oborg salute is formed by an enthusiastic Obot holding both its arms up and joining its cupped hands to form an "O" (for - what else? - O-ba-ma!). More...

In further dreary confirmation that there really isn't anything new anymore, and that we're all just living out endless re-runs of previous generations' fantasies, the Oborg salute wasn't actually invented by the Obama campaign. It was lifted from old Star Trek re-reruns, albeit ones from the 1960s - before the Borg made their appearance in the later series and inspired a whole generation of Democratic political marketeers.

It's really too bad this latest public display of Oborg submission to the Dear Leader wasn't crowd-tested in Berlin when He spoke to His adoring fans. 200,000 German Obots standing with arms raised, glazed eyes focused on the blip on the stage, and chanting "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" is a mob scene with visuals that Leni Riefenstahl would have killed for. Especially if the rally organisers could have also got the Obots to do a bit of energetic marching around the square, which just happens to be packed with 100 year old Prussian war monuments.

And some people wonder why elderly Jews -- and others who lived through the horrors of inter-war fascism -- might have some reservations about supporting this man and his "movement"?

The Obama "movement" and the pretensions of its Lider Maximo really is just getting creepier with every passing day. First, we had people weeping at His rallies and Him exhorting His fans to assimilate their acquaintances. A "light will shine down on you, and you will know you must go to the polls and vote for Obama." The Oborg is now angrily claiming that McCain is trying to paint the Selected One as an anti-Christ, but all the McCain campaign did was show actual video footage of Him saying a number of rather unhinged things. If anyone has been playing with crypto-religious language and imagery it's been the Oborg and its assimilated publicists.

Then, we had Obama proudly standing behind His cartoonish make-believe "presidential seal," complete with faux-Latin "Vero Possumus" slogan. (My Aussie friends asked is this was because Obama wanted to prove how much smarter he is than Dame Edna by showing he can write "Hello Possums!" in Latin; you can imagine how disappointed they were to find out that he wasn't quite that camp. )

That was quickly followed by news His seat on the Obama campaign jet has a label on it saying "President." Who needs elections when you're already the "acting president"?

Now, this Star Trek/Nuremberg mashup.

What next? Actually, I really don't want to know.

Can we please have Hillary back?

Clinton backers want vote

Rules of the convention require a roll-call vote and stipulate that "delegates may vote for the candidate of their choice whether or not the name of such candidate was placed in nomination." The national committee can decide how to handle those votes.

By Allison Sherry and Anne C. Mulkern
The Denver Post

Brenda Krause is tired of fearmongering among the Democrats.

The 55-year-old delegate to the Democratic National Convention doesn't think the party — or its unity — is in any way compromised by her voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton at the roll call.

When Clinton dropped out of the running, Krause mourned that her generation probably isn't going to see a woman claim the Oval Office.

That day, she vowed to stick with the New York senator. More...

I'm not going to be coerced into something I don't believe in," said Krause, who lives in Colorado Springs and owns a real estate office. "That makes me less unified. If they let me have my voice, I'll feel more unified."

So go the voices of dozens of national delegates across the country, pledged to Clinton, who say they are flummoxed about what to do when they are asked to cast a vote in a few weeks.

Though the majority of the Democratic Party backs Sen. Barack Obama, an undercurrent of staunch and loyal Clinton supporters say they'll fight all the way to the national convention, which begins Aug. 25 in Denver, to put her name on the ballot.

Jenny Backus, a senior Obama adviser and convention liaison in Denver, said that across the country, Obama and Clinton delegates have forged ties.

"Sen. Clinton will obviously play a critical role during this convention," Backus said. "Already, we've seen a tremendous reaching out. I've heard of Obama delegates going to Clinton debt-reduction parties. We're one party."

But for many Clinton delegates, it is about principle.

Because they were chosen by her supporters in districts across the country, many say they won't feel that they have fulfilled their duty until they cast a vote for her — however futile that might be.

"I will come on board the unity train with a first-class ticket if, before doing so, I get the opportunity to vote for my candidate," said Daniel Kagan, a property developer and lawyer from Arapahoe County. "On Aug. 28, when Obama accepts the nomination, I will be there cheering along with the rest of them, but only if I have had the chance to vote first."

Kagan is among a small group of people working to garner 300 signatures from national delegates to complete DNC rule requirements to put Clinton's name back on the ballot. Even if they get enough signatures, Clinton must agree to have her name placed on the ballot.

Dean: Choice up to Clinton

Rules of the convention require a roll-call vote and stipulate that "delegates may vote for the candidate of their choice whether or not the name of such candidate was placed in nomination." The national committee can decide how to handle those votes.

Asked whether Clinton's name would be on the ballot, Democratic National Convention Committee spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth said that DNC chairman Howard Dean "has said that's up to her, whether she will put her name in nomination."

Clinton has said in YouTube postings and in a Web chat Thursday that she is working with the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign to find a solution.

Texas delegate Linda Figueroa, a 53-year-old paralegal from Corpus Christi, said the pledged Clinton supporters were told in a delegate conference call this week that they would not get to vote for her. Figueroa said the senator's scheduled speech on the floor of the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening, Aug. 26, was "not enough."

"We (the Clinton delegates) are really having our ups and downs," Figueroa said. "She deserves more than what she's going to get."

Other Clinton delegates said privately that they were afraid to speak out against the Democratic National Committee or Obama, for fear of getting their credentials yanked at the convention.

Debra Bartoshevich, a Wisconsin delegate who, after Clinton dropped out, said she planned to support Republican John McCain, already has been kicked off the national delegation.

Yet, the Obama campaign says it is working hard to solidify the party.

"I think the Obama campaign has tremendous respect for Sen. Clinton and the millions of Americans who supported and worked for her candidacy," said Obama spokeswoman Shannon Gilson. "We've been reaching out to her supporters to join this campaign for change and are struck by how unified Dems are."

One of the olive-branch Clinton delegates is Hector Balderas, the 34-year-old state auditor of New Mexico. He supported Clinton because he liked her policies surrounding high school dropouts. Now he's traversing the state pushing the message for Obama.

"I wouldn't see it as a coronation if we were unified with a particular candidate," Balderas said, adding that putting the party together "would be preparation to do battle" against McCain.

The grassroots group of Clinton supporters says it has nearly 200 signatures notarized to put her name on the convention ballot, with commitments from at least 100 more.

In an attempt to inspire the masses, Kagan, a delegate from Colorado's 1st Congressional District, borrowed from French philosopher Voltaire.

"I don't agree with the way you intend to vote, but I'll fight to the death for your right to vote," he said.

Others, like Will Bower, a founder of Project Unity My A--, or PUMA, are not ready to support Obama.

"Most of us are still working toward getting Hillary the nomination," he said. "We still see a path for victory in Denver."

Anti-"coronation"

At the convention, vociferous Clinton supporters will protest and hold signs that will read "Denounce Nobama's Coronation."

"My group and I are not looking to be arrested," said Simone DuBois, who lives in northern California and filmed the YouTube video from a Clinton fundraiser last week that is madly circulating the country.

DuBois plans to protest in Denver and said she'll probably vote for McCain. "I always thought the Democratic Party had my values until this."

A political action committee called The Denver Group is raising money to pay for newspaper advertisements calling on the Democratic National Committee to allow a vote on both primary candidates and "not a coronation."

Another group plans to air a documentary called "The Audacity of Democracy," which highlights voter confusion during the 2008 Democratic primaries.

Allowing delegates to vote for their chosen candidate gives them an opportunity to celebrate that candidate and their work on the campaign, said former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988.

At the convention in 1984, Hart said, each of his 1,200 delegates voted for him "with no defections."

"My people put on a massive demonstration. It went on for 10 or 15 minutes," Hart said. "They felt very good about it afterward."

Hart thinks Clinton, a longtime party loyalist, will want to prevent protests and help Obama get elected.

"She has a future in the party," Hart said. "She has very little interest, nor does her husband, in wrecking Obama's chances because it will be held against them very, very strongly. She has a lot of reasons to pull an oar, and I think she will."

Since July, Obama staffers say they've reached out to Clinton delegates by phone and e-mail and have invited them to community events and local platform meetings.

Yet some delegates say the process has left them bruised.

Awilda Marquez, a Colorado delegate, said she feels like his campaign has been dismissive of Clinton supporters.

"They say they don't need us. . . . I don't spend 30 seconds a day thinking about that," Marquez said. "When I see a top woman being called a whore and a she-goat, . . . I can't forget that."

Obama disinvited 'lobbyist' Cleland

July 18, 2008By Ben Smith

Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland was an icon of Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, a badly wounded war hero who lost his seat, Kerry deplored, after a television advertising campaign questioned his commitment to national security.

But to the Obama campaign, Cleland has another qualification: Registered lobbyist.

So Cleland — despite his iconic status — was abruptly disinvited from appearing with Obama in Atlanta July 8, three sources familiar with the incident said. More...

"This was a hard decision regarding Senator Cleland," said Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, in an email. He cited Obama's policy of banning lobbyists from participating in fundraising or giving money.

"If we make exceptions, we will open ourselves to criticism," he said.

Cleland has told associates he was asked to appear at an Obama fundraising event in Atlanta on July 8, only to be told at the last minute that he wouldn’t be welcome.

The policy has been a key symbol of Obama’s outsider status, but many Democrats have also quietly questioned whether it goes too far when prominent party figures like Cleland, who an associate said has never actually lobbied in Washington, are left out in the cold on a technicality.

Cleland is registered to lobby for a company whose products are aimed at helping soldiers recover more quickly from battlefield injuries, Tissue Regeneration Technologies.

“Sen. Cleland is definitely not doing lobbying work. He gives speeches and campaigns for a few friends, but mostly he’s spending his time taking care of his father," said Cleland advisor John Marshall, who said that Tissue Regeneration Technologies was the only company on whose behalf he lobbies.

He declined to comment on the incident in Atlanta.

In a brief telephone interview, Cleland also declined to comment on his treatment by the campaign.

"I’m pretty much retired from politics," he said. "I don’t really want to get into that at all."

But Cleland told others he was unpleasantly surprised when, after an invitation to the event for Obama — whom he supports — he was told at the last minute by an Obama aide that he wouldn't be welcome.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton also declined to comment on Cleland's exclusion from the Atlanta fundraiser.

"Sen. Obama has nothing but respect for Sen. Cleland's service to our country and appreciates his support," he said.

UPDATE: A Cleland spokeswoman says he was invited by a friend, not the campaign itself, and has no hard feelings.. The Times has more.

It's Over when We Say It's Over

Posted on August 5, 2008 by riverdaughter and reposted here to share:

Mega Kudos to Katiebird for catching this on FOX this morning. Diane Mantouvalos sent this clip through the JSND network this afternoon of Gary Mauro, former head of Hillary’s campaign in Texas. He’s saying it’s not over until he gets a chance to vote for Hillary for nomination. This just proves how viral the movement is. We had no idea this was coming. As far as I know, Mauro did this without any prompting from us. Click here to watch the video.

Retire This! Will Bower on Hillary's Debt & PUMA's Payback

Click here to watch Will Bower's report on retiring Hillary's debt.

Bill Clinton to Speak at Denver Convention

By Jeff Zeleny

CHICAGO — Yes, Bill Clinton will have a role at the Democratic convention.

After a curious week of back-and-forth between the Obama and Clinton worlds, the former president was offered an invitation to speak on the second-to-last night of the party’s convention in Denver. He will take the stage on Aug. 27, three Democratic senior
officials said, before the address by the party’s vice-presidential nominee.More...

The offer was extended by the Obama campaign on Thursday to Mr. Clinton, who accepted it.

So with Mrs. Clinton speaking on Aug. 26, followed by her husband, the Obama campaign is giving two nights of prime time coverage to the Clinton family. While the invitation was only extended on Thursday, officials said a speaking role for Mr. Clinton had long been in the works.

The matter was so sensitive that no one was willing to speak about it on the record. Democrats on all sides, though, said it’s a do

WASHINGTON, DC NEWS CONFERENCE: Barack Obama: The "Communist connection?"

ANDY MARTIN DEMANDS THAT OBAMA MAKE FULL DISCLOSURE OF CONNECTION TO ALLEGED COMMUNIST

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

'Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

ATTENTION DAYBOOK/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS

ANNOUNCEMENT OF WASHINGTON, DC CONFERENCE August 8th

OBAMA AUTHOR ANDY MARTIN HOLDS A WASHINGTON, DC NEWS CONFERENCE
TO DEMAND THAT OBAMA MAKE "FULL DISCLOSURE" OF HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH PUTATIVE CHICAGO/HAWAII COMMUNIST FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS More...

MARTIN EXPRESSES CONCERN THAT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WAS USED TO "LAUNDER" THE OBAMA/DAVIS CONNECTION

(WASHINGTON, DC)(August 8, 2008) Legendary Chicago corruption fighter, columnist, media critic and Obama adversary Andy Martin will hold a 2:00 P.M. Washington, DC news conference Friday, August 8th to demand that Senator Barack Obama make a full disclosure of his relationship with leftist and putative Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Martin is concerned that Obama has used the Associated Press to "launder" the Davis/Obama relationship. Martin is the author of the controversial bestseller Obama: The Man Behind The Mask.

"Frank Marshall Davis was acknowledged by Obama as perhaps the most significant mentor in Obama's adolescent years," Martin says. "The Obama/Davis connection is a ticking time bomb for the Democratic Party. The matter has not received the attention it deserves. A recent story by the Associated Press seems to be an effort by the Obama campaign to launder Davis' alleged Communist Party connections. Once again, Senator Obama appears to be trying to deflect attention from the peculiar influences which shaped his childhood.

"My column, which will be released at the news conference, calls on Senator Obama to make a full disclosure of his relationship with Davis," Martin states.

FULL DISCLOSURE FROM ANDY MARTIN: I am opposing Senator Obama's election and have become Executive Director of The Stop Obama Coalition, StopObamaCoalition.com. By default, I have become the national leader of the independent anti-Obama movement. I am not acting as either a Democrat or Republican. I have had no contact whatsoever with the McCain Campaign. I am acting as an independent American citizen who sincerely believes Obama is not the man we need in the Oval Office. We are going to run a very dynamic and aggressive campaign against Obama. I will continue to write my columns for ContrarianCommentary.com.

Book orders: www.OrangeStatePress.com. Immediate shipment from the publisher now available.

NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:

WHO: Chicago Internet Columnist-muckraker-Obama opponent
Andy Martin

WHERE: Public sidewalk
1225 19th St., NW
(sidewalk in front of The Palm)
Washington, DC

WHEN: Friday, August 8, 2008 2:00 P. M.

MEDIA
CONTACT: Andy Martin cell (917) 664-9329
Hotel phone (703) 435-2700 (ask for Martin's room)

General media contact: (866) 706-2639

WEBSITE: ContrarianCommentary.com

E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com

-
Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin comments on regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Andy is the author of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, published in July 2008, see www.OrangeStatePress.com. MEDIA CONTACTS: (cell) 917-664-9329; (866) 706-2639 E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com [NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]

Author:
Andy Martin
e-mail
Web: ContrarianCommentary.com
Phone: (866) 706-2639

Democrats Release Draft Platform - rewritten by the Obama controlled DNC

In yet another slap to Hillary and her supporters, the new platform does not appear to address eliminating the unfair caucuses and many of the other issues Hillary supporters have wanted...

By Jonathan Weisman

Barack Obama's takeover of the Democratic Party is nearly complete.

A draft of the Democratic National Committee's 2008 platform was sent this morning to platform committee members, and aside from some nods to the losers, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, the 54-page document reads like a compilation of Sen. Obama's stump speeches. There is a section on fatherhood, a definition of patriotism (not only to declare our love of this nation, but to show it), a section detailing Obama's newly rejiggered economic stimulus plan, a call for more service, through an expanded AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, and a whole lot of hope. More...

"It is time for a change," declares the draft's preamble.

The Democrats commit themselves to a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, including a commitment to bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows" and to allow them to "get right with the law." A party at times riven over the issue of abortion will state it "strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of the ability to pay." That piece of the platform appears to favor doing away with restrictions on the use of taxpayer funds to help finance abortions.

And the party promises to turn away from the intrusive police apparatus of the post-9/11 world of President Bush's War on Terror.The platform pledges to "reject illegal wire-tapping of American citizens," so-called national security letters issued by the FBI that leave citizens little legal recourse, and "torture."

"We will restore our constitutional traditions, and recover our nation's founding commitment to liberty under the law," the draft platform states.

For Edwards, who has bigger issues to deal with at the moment, the DNC makes good on Obama's pledge to him to elevate poverty eradication as a policy goal. "Working together," the platform states, "we can cut poverty in half within ten years."

And Clinton is the star of the platform's section on expanded opportunities for women.

""We have produced [the] first woman Secretary of State, the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, and, in 2008, [with] Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first woman in American history to win presidential primaries in out nation," the platform states.

More on Those Voting Machines in Ohio

Apparently Ohio is still using the Diebold (now "Premier Election Solutions") electronic voting machines ... More...

Mary Pat Flaherty

The voting machine wars in Ohio continue.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is assuring voters in the battleground state that November's tally will be accurate even as she asserts -- in court filings Wednesday -- that there is a problem with the touch screen machines that will be used in half of the state's 88 counties.

Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, said in May that its machines had some problems tabulating votes. But the company has contended in court filings that it had fulfilled its contract to deliver an electronic system.

During the May primary, Brunner said officials in Butler County, north of Cincinnati, realized that 150 votes were dropped when they were being transferred from memory cards. When Brunner looked into it, she found that the software problem had come up in 11 counties. No vote was lost, she said, because local officials had caught the discrepancies.

Voters "should not be alarmed," Brunner said in an interview today, because the state will develop and pass on to counties ways to detect and resolve the problem.

Premier investigated the Butler County incident and said in May that the problem could have been caused by the interaction between its software and an anti-virus software.

Calls to a Premier spokesman were not returned today.

Brunner, saying the machines were delivered with the antivirus software in place, is seeking punitive damages from the company. She has advocated converting Ohio to paper balloting, arguing that it is more reliable, but was rebuffed by the state legislature.

Exxon [Hearts] Obama

August 07, 2008 4:02 PM

As we close up a week wherein Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on the stump and in a TV ad accused rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of being "in the pocket of big oil," and doing the industry's bidding -- not to mention a week during which the Democratic National Committee launched an Exxon-McCain '08 website to drive home this Democratic talking point -- the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics points out that the issue is a bit more complicated than it first would appear. More...

McCain has received three times more money from the oil industry in general -- $1.3 million for McCain compared to approximately $394,000 for Obama. But that said, Obama has received more campaign cash than McCain has from the employees of some of the biggest oil companies -- Exxon, Chevron and BP.

This might seem to complicate Obama's continual use of Exxon-Mobil on the stump.

In Youngstown, Ohio, this week Obama said that McCain is "offering $4 billion more in tax breaks to the biggest oil companies in America -- including $1.2 billion to Exxon-Mobil...a company that, last quarter, made the same amount of money in 30 seconds that a typical Ohio worker makes in a year."

In Lansing, Michigan, Obama said Exxon-Mobil "is the company that, last quarter, made $1,500 every second. That’s more than $300,000 in the time it takes you to fill up a tank with gas that’s costing you more than $4-a-gallon. And Senator McCain not only wants them to keep every dime of that money, he wants to give them more. So make no mistake – the oil companies have placed their bet on Senator McCain."

But based on data downloaded electronically from the Federal Election Commission on July 29, 2008, reports CRP: "Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain's $35,166. Chevron favors Obama $35,157 to $28,500, and Obama edges out McCain with BP $16,046 vs. $11,500."

McCain himself has tried to push back against the Obama charge, telling votes at a town hall in Lima, Ohio, today, that he "spoke up against the Administration and Congress and Senator Obama when they gave us an energy bill with more giveaways to Big Oil and really no solution to our energy problems," and Obama did not.

Discussing the 2005 energy bill, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly, McCain said "I think Senator Obama might be a little bit confused. Yesterday, he accused me of having President Bush's policies on energy. That's odd because he voted for the President's energy bill and I voted against it. I voted against it, had $2.8 billion in corporate welfare to Big Oil companies, and they're already making record profits, as you know. Senator Obama voted for that bill and its Big Oil giveaways. I know he hasn't been in the Senate that long, but even in the real world, voting for something means you support it and voting against something means you oppose it."

The Obama campaign disputes that the bill was "the president's" energy bill, and in Lansing told voters that McCain voted "against an energy bill that – while far from perfect – represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country."
~ END ~
_______________

Is this the type of "compromise we can expect from Obama? - YIKES!