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The three network anchors will travel to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip, adding their high-wattage spotlight to what is already shaping up as a major media extravaganza. Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.

Denver—With a recent move to relegate peaceful protestors beneath the Denver homeless population, Re-create 68 has now vowed that there will indeed be “a bloodbath” at the Democratic National Convention should they try to keep them fenced in. The American Civil Liberties Union and several advocacy groups have filed an amended complaint to their lawsuit, stating that their First Amendment rights have been violated by security restrictions. “What the hell do they think we are? Barnyard animals,” asked Tom Mestnik, a member of The Re-create ’68 Alliance, an umbrella group organizing the protesters. “They’re giving the homeless a free pass...

While to some folks the idea of dual citizenship might seem benign, it can greatly effect a person’s emotional attachment and identification with this country. Emotional attachment and identification with a country contributes greatly to a person’s willingness to make sacrifices and stand in harms way to defend our home, values and ideals. Still, dual citizenship has become acceptable because instead of promoting assimilation, diversity has become the mantra of our public institutions, undermining what traditionally binds us together; the shared values and political beliefs that make us one people… This notion and the idea that there are no consequences...

Observe that the Lutherans cite government as “an important catalyst in God’s work.” In fact, their agenda implies that government is virtually God’s only instrument. The Lutherans want government to abolish poverty, prohibit war, cleanse the environment, engineer egalitarian justice globally, and seemingly usher in The Millennium through additional regulation and taxation. If government can achieve so much, who needs God, much less the church?

Officials of the declining 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have revealed what God’s priorities are in the U.S. presidential campaign. And remarkably, the divine priorities was very akin to the Democratic Party’s priorities, if not further to the left. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, with three other ELCA officials generously wrote both presidential candidates a public letter with the divine guidance. Although famed Protestant Reformer Martin Luther championed the Bible as God’s exclusive revelation, modern ELCA activists have located more useful counsel in the secular welfare state and environmental agenda. “The Scriptures are clear about God's concern for...

HARRISBURG -- Grand jurors here and in Pittsburgh cataloged what they described as a culture of corruption that allowed former state Rep. Michael Veon, current Rep. Sean Ramaley and 10 current and former Democratic staffers to divert millions of dollars in state resources, including more than $1 million in illegal pay bonuses. The jurors said Mr. Veon and the staff members conspired to arrange hefty year-end pay bonuses to House employees who worked on political campaigns over a three-year period, while Mr. Ramaley is accused of working full-time on his 2004 House campaign in Beaver County while drawing a taxpayer...

Soldiers stood directly behind Raddatz as she queried GI’s walking past. She asked 60 GI’s who they planned to vote for in November. 54 said John McCain, 4 for Obama, and 2 for Hillary. When the story ran, they didn't even mention the 54 that chose McCain.

Will Obama Debate John McCain Without Preconditions? July 7, 2008 The world of Presidential candidate Barack Obama must be a strange and fascinating place. You get to be the "post-racial" guy while dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck like an old time poker cheat. Along with this political slight of hand, your solution to solving the fuel crisis involves punishing the people who actually produce the gas while raising taxes on the people who buy gas. When it comes to gas, Mr. Obama is having a sort of political dyslexia. On the campaign trail he said...

Barack Obama's campaign changed the rules of a highly publicized fundraiser Tuesday, after gambling regulators said the contest — a chance at one of 10 trips to the Democratic National Convention — was an illegal lottery. "We are happy to have resolved this issue working closely with state officials," said Nick Kimball, spokesman for the Obama campaign ... A spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State said Democrats would have to get a license if they were conducting "a standard raffle where they're buying tickets" in order to win. But under the new rules, supporters don't have to donate money...

Make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, and you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to meet Barack backstage and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the 10 selected supporters can bring a guest, and will be flown to Denver to spend two days at the convention, culminating in Barack's speech on Thursday, August 28th.

Is Barack Obama's website conducting an outlawed-in-Minnesota raffle? The Minnesota Gambling Control Board thinks giving new donors a chance to meet Obama backstage in Denver is worth investigating. The Strib's Randy Furst says only nonprofits, not campaigns, can conduct raffles in Minnesota. The raffle standard: it costs money to participate, it's based on luck of the draw, and something of value is at stake. Obama's campaign sounds like it will argue the winners won't be random.

Friend -- I wanted you to be the first to hear the news. At the Democratic National Convention next month, we're going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we've opened it up throughout this campaign. Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his. On Thursday, August 28th, he's scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates. Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge,...

The swift boats are coming. They'll go by different names this year, but the largely unregulated interest groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - which in 2004 torpedoed Democrat John Kerry with allegations he'd inflated his war record - are gearing up for the 2008 White House race like never before. So far this year, so-called 527 groups - named for a section of the IRS tax code - have raised a staggering $210 million, up from $182 million at this point in 2004. But here's the ideological bottom line - roughly two-thirds of that $210 million has been...

Media: Four years ago this week, we noted how negative coverage of the Iraq War had become. But that was when things weren't going well. This is now, when things are going much better. So coverage must be much more positive, right? (with asterisks indicating page-toppers): • June 11: "Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say"* "NATO Not Expected to Send Force to Iraq" • June 13: "Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go"* "Insurgents and Islam Now Rulers of Fallujah" • June 14: "At Least 20 Killed in Baghdad (Car) Bombings" • June 15: "Iraq's Foreign Contractors in...

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) waded into the debate over John McCain's military service Monday to say that the Republican should avoid using military service in politics. Webb, a Barack Obama supporter, was on MSNBC's "Countdown" to talk about his G.I. Bill to increase education benefits for returning veterans which is now law. Webb criticized both McCain and President Bush for not supporting the bill. Then, unprompted, Webb weighed in on the debate over retired Gen. Wesley Clark's remark that "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" isn't "a qualification to be president."

The day after the election, Slate's political writers tackled the question of why the Democratic Party—which has now lost five of the past seven presidential elections and solidified its minority status in Congress—keeps losing elections. Chris Suellentrop says that John Kerry was too nuanced and technocratic, while George W. Bush offered a vision of expanding freedom around the world. William Saletan argues that Democratic candidates won't win until they again cast their policies the way Bill Clinton did, in terms of values and moral responsibility. Timothy Noah contends that none of the familiar advice to the party—move right, move left,...

I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. My predecessors in this conversation are thoughtful men, and I honor their ideas, but let's try something else. I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant,...

The transcripts show that John F. Kerry said the right things to connect with religion-minded voters, with his earnest speeches about God's work on Earth and invocations of faith and Scripture. Yet they landed with a thud on a populace conditioned to view liberal Democrats as faithless intellectuals. No doubt Kerry's stiff New England style didn't help. This is not what religious faith looks like to much of the rest of the country, especially the South. Yet one candidate's stiffness cannot fully explain the "God gap" that drives people of faith, and those more concerned with moral issues than economic...

I have to thank Jimmy Carter for saving my sanity. Granted, his was not a presidency that one looks back to with fondness. Gas lines stretched forever, Iran took our people hostage, and there was disco. But Carter's ex-presidency has been a model of that unofficial institution. He has built homes for the poor, mediated wars, helped feed the hungry in Africa, fought disease in Latin America. In so doing, Carter -- a deacon of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga. -- has obeyed a directive that Jesus issued to one of his disciples.

Bested by a Republican campaign emphasizing Christian faith, some Democrats are scrambling to shake off their secular image, stepping up efforts to organize the "religious left" and debating changes to how they approach the cultural flashpoints of same-sex marriage and abortion. Some call the election a warning. "You can't have everybody who goes to church vote Republican; you just can't," Al From, founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, said last week at a forum on the election. Religious traditionalists including Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and Jim Wallis...

Liberal religious figures, concerned about broad moral issues such as world poverty as well as the perception that ''moral values" helped win the election for President Bush, are stepping up their organizational efforts to support left-leaning candidates and their causes to prepare for the 2006 midterms and the 2008 presidential election.

Democrats, reeling from the Republicans' success at courting churchgoers, are focusing new attention on a religious and political anomaly: Jim Wallis, one of the few prominent left-leaning leaders among evangelical Protestants. At the start of the Congressional session, Senate Democrats invited Mr. Wallis to address their members at a private session to discuss issues. A group of about 15 House Democrats invited him to a breakfast discussion about dispelling their party's secular image. And NBC News has enlisted him to appear as a guest during its inauguration coverage opposite Dr. James C. Dobson, one of the most prominent evangelical conservatives....

The party of abortion has tapped a leader from the religious left to help it get back in the good graces of the red states. Democrats are looking for ways to tap the evangelical vote that went so strongly for Republicans and President Bush in November, so they've enlisted the leader of Sojourners, Jim Wallis, to help improve their party's poor image in the eyes of Christians. Wallis, one of the leaders of the evangelical left, told The New York Times that Democrats have a problem: They are being perceived as secular fundamentalists. Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family...

Like any preacher worth his salt, Jim Wallis, the self-described "progressive evangelical" leader and editor of Sojourners magazine who has lately been discovered by Democrats in Washington desperate to learn the language of "moral values," likes to tell a story to drive a point home. In his new book, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" (HarperSanFrancisco), just published this week and currently sitting at #2 on Amazon.com, Wallis recalls speaking to "a group of Boston's best and brightest Left/liberal intelligentsia" gathered in "a large living room" a few blocks off Harvard Square....

… Hillary Clinton, engaged in …God-drenching ...fundraiser organised by the Reverend Eugene Rivers…She lavished praise on faith-based organizations… ...Clinton's speech was part of a growing debate on the left about how to close the God gap. Democrats want to change the focus of religious debate from abortion and gay marriage to, say, war and poverty. ... …Hillary told …pro-choice activists not only that abortion represents “a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women” but also that “religious and moral values” are the primary reason why teenage girls abstain from early sexual activity. …more proof of Mrs Clinton's political maturity...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wants her party to develop a faith agenda for 2006 to try to reconnect with religious-minded American voters. Pelosi has tapped U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., to lead the effort to recapture faith-based voters who, exit polls indicate, constituted a substantial bloc of votes in the 2004 U.S. elections. Clyburn said he would convene a working group to review party policies and ideas and look at new ways to frame those issues in faith-based terms, Roll Call reported Monday. "Our problem is not our programs," Clyburn added. "It's been...

America stands at a religious and a political crossroad. If Barack Obama becomes president, his religiosity will be embraced to some extent by certain members of our society. There will be more unseemly and drastic changes than our country has ever experienced. Obama and others of his ilk will dedicatedly undermine the traditional understanding of God’s Word to change our society as they see fit. The Democrats implemented a strategy to vie for votes using Christian verbiage to draw people to them. However, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfeger spoiled it to a degree with their flamboyance.

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential "spam" blogs. "You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog," the Google e-mail read. In an article that appeared on Bloggasm.com, the reporter Simon Owens spoke with some of the affected bloggers, who said they believed that Google had fallen prey to a campaign by activists...

Barack Obama needs to give a speech about Iraq. Otherwise he will find himself in the unusual position of having being prescient about the war in 2002 and yet being overtaken by events in 2008. The most important reason to do this is not political. Iraq is fading in importance for the public and, to the extent that it matters as an electoral issue, most people agree with Obama's judgment that the war was not worth fighting. The reason to lay out his approach to Iraq is that, were he elected, the war would be his biggest and most immediate...

Elaborate plans are underway to encircle and "shut down" the Republican National Convention at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center in September. The strategies and tactics involved could come straight from a guerrilla warfare manual. Anarchist groups with ominous names -- the RNC Welcoming Committee, Unconventional Action -- have announced a "three-tier strategy" to cut off the Xcel Center. The steps include "blockading" streets and freeways, "immobilizing" delegates' transportation and "blocking" bridges to impede delegates' access to the center. The plan also features a "swarm, seize, stay" strategy. After dividing the city into "sectors," protesters propose to "seize space" through both...

...More importantly however is the fact that news organizations across the country conveniently failed to publish this portion of Obama’s remarks. Both CNN Online and The New York Times published excerpts of the speech that omitted the gaffe. Two reporters, however, took it upon themselves to alter the text of Obama’s speech in articles they published...

Members of the media, by a 4-to-1 ratio, self-identify as political liberals. This does not fully explain why Sen. Barack Obama received prefer ential treatment in his campaign against Hillary Clinton. However, it could explain why they are ignoring his flaws and untruths. The term “mainstream media” is really a misnomer. It is unfair to call the news media “mainstream” when you com pare them to America. Only 6 percent of journalists identify themselves as conservative compared to over one-third (36 percent) of the public classify ing themselves as such. Only 19 percent of the public consider themselves liberal according...

A trifecta of gaffes has Obama taking heat even from some of his biggest fans. A McCain opportunity?Barack Obama is endangering his status as the media darling of the 2008 presidential campaign. In fact, he has been the villain in the campaign story over the last few days. Two decisions — one small and one large — showed the dangers he faces. And a third showed that the post-racial candidate is no longer in evidence. It is no secret that the media has been openly rooting for Obama for months. His gaffes would have felled other candidates, his relationship with...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gay-rights advocates asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to remove a proposed state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage from the November ballot, saying it would destroy fundamental rights that cannot be legally altered by a voter initiative. The suit was filed by organizations representing gay and lesbian couples in the case that led to the court's May 15 ruling striking down the state law that excluded them from marriage - a ruling that the Nov. 4 initiative would reverse. Like one of the laws that the court overturned, the initiative declares that "only a marriage between...

Shades of Dukakis, Obama up 15 THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW BY: Salena Zito In May of 1988 after all of the Democratic primaries ended presumptive nominee Michael Dukakis enjoyed a 54 to 38 percent lead over then Ronald Reagan wing man George H.W. Bush. H.W. went on to win in that November handily This evening a new Newsweek poll shows Obama having a giant lead, from 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters across the country. Obama got his bounce, Dukakis style.

Obama's current lead also reflects the large party-identification advantage the Democrats now enjoy - 55 percent of all voters call themselves Democrats or say they lean toward the party while just 36 percent call themselves Republicans or lean that way. Obama's personal ratings have improved, as well: 62 percent of voters overall say they have a favorable opinion of him compared to only 26 percent who have an unfavorable opinion. By comparison, McCain's ratings are 49 percent favorable to 37 percent unfavorable, representing a drop from his previous 54 percent favorable rating. Obama is trusted more to handle what may...

An unbylined Associated Press report yesterday, at least as carried at MSNBC, acknowledges improvement, and then explains why it's not going to get much future coverage from the wire service as long as things stay that way: BAGHDAD - Signs are emerging that Iraq has reached a turning point. Violence is down, armed extremists are in disarray, government confidence is rising and sectarian communities are gearing up for a battle at the polls rather than slaughter in the streets. Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States, where the war-weary public is focused on the American presidential...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - George W. Bush began flying a two-seat training jet more frequently and twice required multiple attempts to land a one-seat fighter in the weeks just before he quit flying for the Texas Air National Guard in 1972, his pilot logs show. The logs show Bush flew nine times in T-33 trainers in February and March 1972, including eight times in one week and four of those only as a co-pilot. Bush, then a first lieutenant, flew in T-33s only twice in the previous six months and three times in the year ending July 31, 1971.</p>

Have you seen this delicious little quote from Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Paul Jankorski? Why it would seem that Mr. Jankorski is admitting that the Democrats lied about what was going on in Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections? Here's his quote: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we ... the Democrats ... that if we won the Congressional elections we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. "But you know ... the temptation to want to win back the Congress ......

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - If not for "Meet The Press" and its host, Tim Russert, Jim Webb figures he may not be a United States senator. And a debate moderated by the NBC newsman who died Friday was a turning point in Democrat Timothy M. Kaine's campaign for governor. Both candidates fondly recalled Russert on Saturday at the Virginia Democratic Convention and acknowledged his role in pivotal moments in their 2005 and 2006 campaigns. Webb said his September 2006 appearance alongside Republican Sen. George Allen on "Meet The Press" was the turning point in his narrow, come-from-behind victory over Allen...

Smear: LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United... Lie: Proven GOP sleazemeister Roger Stone says he has "credible evidence that some indelible record exists" of a tape of Michelle Obama using the term "whitey."

June 11, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Obama’s Unofficial Slogan: ‘No, You’re Wrong.’Whatever happened to his ‘pang of shame’? By Jim Geraghty As Barack Obama’s campaign becomes defined by a series of embarrassments — his assessment of what small-town residents cling to, a mentor who believes the government created HIV, a friend of 20 years who takes to the pulpit and demands whites give up 401(k) accounts to atone for their ancestor’s racist sins, a wife who pledges to take away some people’s pie and give it to others, an associate who expresses no regret over planting a bomb in a...

Pranksters putting stupid comments on item reviews

There is already a widespread consensus that Barack Obama will say whatever he has to say to get elected. His own pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said that he understood why Obama had to distance himself from him to avoid unfavorable attention. Obama also put on an American flag pin (perhaps for the first time) along with an Israel flag pin to talk to AIPAC, but he would probably wear a Palestinian flag pin if he spoke to the International Solidarity Movement. We also recall Yassir Arafat’s technique of saying in English what he wanted the West to believe while using Arabic...

Compare the two headlines... Obama seen by msm as going on offense. McCain seen as going negative. This is just the beginning folks.

Do note: The question wasn’t whether the end product is biased (say, unconsciously), it was whether the media’s even trying to be objective. Answering no: 68% overall, including 56% of Democrats and 50% of liberals. Our nutroots betters assure us that the press is thoroughly right-wing, so it must be McCain whom people believe is getting a free ride, yes? Not so much: Voters have little doubt as to who is benefitting from the media coverage this year—Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent (54%) say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far. Twenty-two percent (22%) say McCain has received the most...

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday, less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention. “It’s time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president,” Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment. Nelson had announced he would offer the legislation in an address to his state’s senate in March. Nelson said his principal argument for making the change is that the Electoral College permits a candidate...

Back in 1960 the skills required to become President of the United States changed forever. That was the year that John F. Kennedy debated Richard M. Nixon on national network television for the first time. When reminiscing about Kennedy's win, pundits love to cite that he was tanned, good looking, had great hair and had his make-up professionally applied, while Mr. Nixon appeared pale, had a nervous demeanor and sweaty brow. They say that Nixon won on the radio but Kennedy won on TV. 1960 ushered in the era of the Network politician. For better or for worse, after the...

Jane Drury voted last year in an election in Stonington, Conn. The only problem is, she died eight years ago. Her daughter Jane Gumpel thought someone must have goofed. “I was surprised because this is not possible,” she said. But it did happen. The town clerk’s record clearly shows Drury’s vote, marked by a horizontal line poll workers put next to her name. And it turns out, Drury isn’t the only voter to apparently cast a ballot from the grave. [snip] 8,558 deceased people who were still registered on Connecticut’s voter rolls. They discovered more than 300 of them appeared...