Up oh... Hilliary please drop out! it's Over!

Source of this Topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_el_pr/obama_edwards;_ylt=AuNEKrgtNiSwLz.ZwO0Vc11xFb8C

Edwards gives long-awaited endorsement to Obama

By CHUCK BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Democrat John Edwards is endorsing former rival Barack Obama, fresh signs of the party establishment embracing the likely nominee even as Hillary Rodham Clinton refuses to give up her long-shot candidacy.

Edwards was to appear with Obama in Grand Rapids, Mich., as Obama campaigns in a critical general election battleground state.

The endorsement comes the day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia. The loss highlighted Obama's work to win over the "Hillary Democrats" — white, working-class voters who also supported Edwards in large numbers before he exited the race.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 vice presidential nominee, dropped out of the race in late January.

Both Obama and Clinton immediately asked Edwards for his endorsement, but he stayed mum for more than four months. A person close to Edwards, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he wanted to get involved now to begin unifying the party. Obama also signed on to Edwards' poverty initiative, which was a major cause for Edwards in his campaign and since he left.

When he made his decision, Edwards didn't even tell many of his former top advisers because he wanted to make sure that he personally talked to Clinton to give her the news, said the person close to him. Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, who has spoken favorably about Clinton's health care plan, did not travel with him to Michigan and is not part of the endorsement.

Is it a wrap for ole Hillary?

Source of Topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_el_pr/obama_endorsement

Obama picks up 9 superdelegates, union endorsement

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

Obama picked up the backing of nine superdelegates, including Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had been a Clinton supporter.

In addition, the American Federation of Government Employees announced its support for Obama. The union claims about 600,000 members who work in the federal and Washington, D.C., governments.

Obama, who won a convincing victory in the North Carolina primary and lost Indiana narrowly on Tuesday, has been steadily gaining strength in the days since.
Clinton also gained a superdelegate.

The developments left the former first lady with 271.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama. Little more than four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, she held a lead of 169-63.
Superdelegates are party leaders who attend the convention delegates by virtue of their positions, and are not selected in primaries and caucuses.

In an interview with National Public Radio, former candidate John Edwards said Clinton has made a compelling case for her candidacy, but "I think it's very hard for her now to make a compelling case for the math. I mean, I think that's the reality of what she's faced with. She knows that. ... It's just very hard to see how the math works."

In addition to Payne, Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, two members of the Democratic National Committee from California and a party official in South Carolina announced they were supporting Obama. Superdelegates from New Mexico and Virginia also joined the migration.

So, too, John Gage, president of the AFGE.

"Our people, I think, recognize the enthusiasm and vitality behind Senator Obama's campaign," he said in a statement.

"The election is over, everybody knows that. Obama has won," said Vernon Watkins, one of the two Californians.

"After careful consideration, I have reached the conclusion that Barack Obama can best bring about the change that our country so desperately wants and needs," said Payne, who in a statement said that Clinton is a good friend and he still holds her in high regard.

Payne is one of at least 10 superdelegates who have switched allegiances from Clinton to Obama. None have publicly switched the other way.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama leads with 1,859.5 delegates, to 1,697 for Clinton. Obama is just 165.5 delegates short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win it.

Clinton's new supporter was Rep. Chris Carney, D-Pa. His congressional district voted overwhelmingly for the former first lady in the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

Both Obama and Clinton have courted superdelegates in recent days in private meetings at party headquarters not far from the Capitol.

Despite Watkins' assessment, Clinton has shown no signs she is ready to quit the race. She is heavily favored to win Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, and is in the midst of a two-day swing through several other states with upcoming elections.
___
Associated Press Writers Jesse Holland and Matthew Daly in Washington and Solvej Schou in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Source of Topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_el_pr/obama_endorsement

And she wants us to believe she's more qualified.... She can't even make coffee!

Source of this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C9bkuJliMY

Source of this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C9bkuJliMY

Is Hillary Clinton a desperado?

Source of this topic: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/bitterdebate415

Black Political Observers: ‘Bitter’ Debate Reveals Sheer Desperation of Clinton Campaign
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2008By: Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Black political analysts said Monday that the so-called "bitter" debate -- where Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is accused of talking down to small-town blue-collar workers -- is a desperate, manufactured attack by Hillary Clinton seven days before a critical primary in Pennsylvania.

Obama has spent four days on the defensive after comments he made at a San Francisco fundraiser were disclosed that suggested working class people are "bitter" about their economic circumstances and "cling to guns and religion" as a result.

And some in the media, Democrats add, have kept the story alive after Clinton labeled Obama as "elitist" who is "out of touch" with the American people.

Initial indications are that Obama’s controversial remarks have not upset voters. A new Gallup Poll shows Obama continuing to hold a solid lead over Clinton in national Democratic voters’ support for the presidential nomination, 50 percent to 41 percent.

Source of this topic: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/bitterdebate415

Bob Johnson is proof that money will not solve the problem of ignorance in our communities

Source of this topic: http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur42639.cfm

BOB JOHNSON PULLS A GERALDINE FERRARO: Founder of BET still hatin' on Obama.

*Looks like Bob Johnson wants to get knee deep in the Democratic presidential race doo-doo all over again. Actually, he is knee-deep in it.

On Monday, speaking to the Charlotte Observer, he did his best Geraldine Ferraro imitation and that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party's leading candidate if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

"Billionaire Bob," the founder of BET, which he sold for close to $3 billion to Viacom and who also owns the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, is a longtime friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Johnson first stepped "into it" back in January when he was stumping for NY Senator Hillary Clinton by referring to Illinois Senator Barack Obama and "what he was doing in the neighborhood."

Many took that as a reference to Obama's acknowledged drug use in his youth. But in a statement, Johnson said he'd been "referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect."

On Monday, the Observer reported that Johnson also alluded to the incident.

"I make a joke about Obama doing drugs (and it's) 'Oh my God, a black man tearing down another black man'," Johnson said.

The Obama campaign dismissed Johnson's comments. "This is just one in a long line of absurd comments by Bob Johnson and other Clinton supporters who will say or do anything to get the nomination," said spokesman Dan Leistikow. "The American people are tired of this and are ready to turn the page on these kind of attack politics."

Johnson disputed the notion that Obama has built a broad coalition. Most of his support, he said, comes from African Americans and white liberals but not white, working-class Democrats.

"I don't think he has that common -- what I call `I-want-to-go-out-and-have-a-drink-with-you -- touch," Johnson said. Johnson said Obama is likely to win the nomination and has had the support of "the liberal media."

"They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don't want to see Bill and Hillary in power again," he said. "So Obama comes in and runs a smart campaign. But that's not the Second Coming, in my opinion, of John F. Kennedy, FDR or the world's greatest leaders."

Source of this topic: http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur42639.cfm

Why is Bill Clinton lying again...He can't help himself!

Source of this topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080411/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_bosnia_fact_check

Clinton misstates wife's Bosnia tale

WASHINGTON - Former President Clinton has added to the falsehoods surrounding his wife's tale of her trip to Bosnia 12 years ago.

In Indiana on Thursday, Bill Clinton defended his wife's mistake in claiming that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia, accusing the media of treating her like "she'd robbed a bank" for confusing the facts.

The New York senator had repeatedly described a harrowing scene in Tuzla, Bosnia, in which she and her daughter, Chelsea, had to run for cover as soon as they landed for a visit in 1996. Video footage of the day instead showed a peaceful reception in which an 8-year-old girl greeted the first lady.

Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that she got the facts wrong in retelling the tale. Bill Clinton's inaccuracies don't involve long-ago memories, but misstatements about how his wife has handled the story.

THE SPIN:
"A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me," Bill Clinton said in Boonville, Ind. "But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995.

"Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up," the former president continued. "Let me just tell you. The president of Bosnia and Gen. Wesley Clark — who was there making peace where we'd lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way — both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flak jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters. So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.

"Now I say that because what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops," he said. "And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you would of thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they all carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 o'clock at night, too."

THE FACTS:

Bill Clinton has many of the facts wrong.

His wife didn't make the sniper fire claim "one time late at night when she was exhausted." She actually told the story several times, including during prepared remarks on foreign policy delivered the morning of March 17.

It's also not true that she "immediately apologized for it." Clinton has never apologized for the comments and only acknowledged that she "misspoke" a week after the March 17 speech when video of her peaceful tarmac reception emerged.

It's also not true that she was the "first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone" — a claim that Hillary Clinton has also made when talking about the trip. Pat Nixon traveled to Saigon during the Vietnam war and Barbara Bush went to Saudi Arabia two months before the launching of Desert Storm.

The trip also was not in 1995, but 1996.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded to the former president's remarks Friday by saying, "Senator Clinton appreciates her husband standing up for her, but this was her mistake and she takes responsibility for it."

She's also told her husband to quit talking about it.

"Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am,'" Bill Clinton, who was in Indiana campaigning for his wife Friday, told reporters.

Why can't Hillary Clinton tell the truth?

Source of the Topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_hospital_fact_check

Clinton's tale part truth, part errors

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stopped telling a story of a pregnant woman's medical tragedy after an Ohio hospital challenged its accuracy last weekend.

But recent accounts of the episode have omitted key details that suggest there was more truth in the essence of Clinton's tale than her critics, and even her presidential campaign, have acknowledged.

Since early March, the New York senator has often told campaign audiences a heartbreaking story of a young Ohio woman who began having problems with her pregnancy. She said the woman was twice turned away by a local hospital because she had no health insurance and could not pay a $100 minimum charge.

Clinton, who advocates health coverage for all Americans, put it this way in Terre Haute, Ind., on March 20: "I'll tell you a quick story that I heard in Ohio when I was campaigning there," she said. "A deputy sheriff told me about a young woman who worked at the pizza parlor there and she worked for minimum wage, she didn't have any insurance. She got pregnant, went to the hospital — and I don't blame the hospital. The hospital said, 'We can't take any more charity care. You have to give us $100 before we can examine you.' She didn't have $100. Went back another time, they told her the same thing."

Sen. Clinton said the woman returned a third time "in an ambulance. And they worked hard to stabilize her, and she lost her baby. Then they airlifted her to Columbus to the medical center, and for 15 days they tried to save her life, and she died."

THE SPIN:
Because Clinton never named the woman or the hospital, the story generated only gasps and tears at campaign stops. But on April 3, The Washington Post named the woman, Trina Bachtel, 35, of Middleport, Ohio, who died last August. The Daily Sentinel, a paper published in nearby Pomeroy, Ohio, cited Bachtel's name the next day.

With the patient's name now publicized locally and nationally, officials at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio, feared their facility would be falsely accused. Bachtel was indeed treated in August at O'Bleness, where her baby was stillborn. But Bachtel was never refused treatment there, and she even had medical insurance, the officials told The New York Times in a story published Saturday.

"We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story," Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O'Bleness Health System," told the Times.
Media outlets and political Web sites began criticizing Clinton for retelling the unsubstantiated story. By Saturday night, Clinton's campaign said she would drop it from her speeches.

"Candidates are told stories by people all the time, and it's common for candidates to retell those stories," said campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee. "In this case, we tried but weren't able to fully vet the story."

THE FACTS:
Clinton said she heard the story from Meigs County Deputy Sheriff Bryan Holman during a visit to Pomeroy, before the March 4 Ohio primary.

In a March 26 phone interview with The Associated Press, Holman said he had told Clinton the story in essentially the same way she was retelling it in her speeches. He said he knew the Bachtel story only second hand, and lacked several details.

The AP then spoke with Bachtel's aunt, Susie Casto of Middleport, who helped raise the woman. She said Bachtel, who worked at a pizza parlor, did in fact have health insurance when she and her baby died.

But at an earlier time, Casto said, Bachtel lacked health insurance and ran up unpaid bills when treated at a clinic near her home in Middleport. When she returned for treatment when pregnant, the clinic demanded $100 per visit to help retire the outstanding debt, Casto said. Because Bachtel could not afford the fees and found it difficult to travel, her aunt said, she postponed receiving treatment.

Bachtel eventually went to O'Bleness, about 30 miles to the north, for attention.
Casto declined to name the clinics or hospitals involved, and said she felt medical professionals did all they could to save Bachtel and her unborn child.

Pomeroy has about 2,000 residents and two medical clinics. One is affiliated with O'Bleness, the other is the Holzer Clinic, part of a nine-facility chain.

O'Bleness Health System spokeswoman Lynn Anastos said Monday that Bachtel was not a patient at their Pomeroy facility and "she would not have been turned away for lack of payment" if she had sought treatment there.

Holzer associate administrator Jim Blevins said his company has no record of Bachtel being a patient for the past five years. About half of Holzer's patients are "charity cases," he said, and the company tries to work out payment schedules with those who fall behind on their bills.
In some cases, Blevins said, Holzer clinics place "credit restrictions" on patients believed to be able but unwilling to pay their bills. That would not apply to patients needing immediate or emergency care, he said.

Clinton erred in telling audiences that the Ohio woman lacked insurance when seeking help for her troubled pregnancy. But according to Casto's account, Bachtel's medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence of Clinton's now-abandoned account: the lack of insurance created a $100 barrier to needed medical attention close to home.
___
By Charles Babington

Source of the Topic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_hospital_fact_check