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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I) today took shots at those who are not supporting the health care legislation. During a floor speech, he excoriated Senate GOP members for for holding the pending health care bill and accused their supporters of being birthers and fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups.

DEARBORN, Mich., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Ethnic groups, especially Arab-Americans, say the U.S. census all but eliminates any way of distinguishing their background by simply classifying them as white. "It's unfair because we are not treated as white in society and by the government, but we also don't qualify as minorities to get the benefits of some programs" such as minority contracts, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Regional Director Imad Hamad said. The concern arose because, for the first time, the regular 2010 U.S. census form eliminates a question asking people about their ancestry. Government officials say they shortened the form so...

This guy is just a racist...clearly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUre-TwijR0

Researchers are tracking a golden eagle found in southwestern Wisconsin to learn if this western bird is broadening its range. Golden eagles are relatively unknown in Minnesota, infrequently seen, counted in small numbers and for a long time thought to be lone wanderers from the west. These huge brown birds do winter here, however. They hunt for prey on the steep grassy slopes in the driftless area. Any given winter, about five dozen golden eagles cross the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Wisconsin and back. Goldens are essentially birds of western North America. They nest all the way up to...

The prosecution in the corruption trial of former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and others gave jurors a tantalizing glimpse of what authorities called a web of intrigue in which black leaders solicited bribes from white developers because, they said, it was time for those developers to pay. “The game has done changed,” defendant Darren Reagan is heard saying on an audio tape played during opening statements by the prosecution. Defense opening statements were taking place this afternoon. In a surprising development, Hill's attorney, Ray Jackson, said his client would take the stand during the trial. Prosecutors say Reagan...

You can believe it or not. I want to believe it, but I have my doubts. Check it out here: Link: Michelle Obama tapes’ imminent release approaching: API in a serious negotiation with FOX NEWS on the best way forward.

I have decided to write this open letter and to refer you to our telephone conversation the day your husband was having a debate with his opponent in New York. This has to be an open letter because the story is already out there and many Americans are crying for the truth about what we discussed. I know our discussion was not meant to harm your husband’s candidacy nor was it meant to derail the US Presidential elections in any way. We both know that our talk was - a sister to brother talk - black to black person talk...

NEW HOLLAND, Ohio -- Joshua Rea, 30, heard the news while having a bite at CC's White Cottage restaurant. "This is crazy, man," he said incredulously, reaching for a phone to call his dad. "Obama's ancestors lived right down the road," he told his father, a local farmer. "Our ancestors were probably kicking it with his ancestors." Here in rural Pickaway County, 30 minutes south of Columbus, word is spreading that a pair of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's ancestors are buried just a few miles away and that the Democratic nominee has loads of distant relatives living in southern Ohio....

For those who say race is no longer an issue in America and say this blog shouldn’t exist, I give you an Associated Press-Yahoo study that says white Democratic racism may cause 2.5 percent of voters to not vote for Barack Obama because of his RACE. A story on politico.com says that percentage is roughly the margin of President Bush’s victory over John F. Kerry in 2004. The study found that one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views of black people, calling them “lazy,” “violent” and responsible for their own troubles. This is the party of most black registered voters!...

Every night before we go to bed, my daughters and I talk about our worst and best parts of the day. Today, we all agreed that the best part was watching Michelle Obama's warm and passionate speech, and then seeing her girls come onto the stage. As a mom, I felt we were experiencing a piece of history together... The fact that today a smart, articulate, beautiful and accomplished black woman from the South side of Chicago stood before seasoned politicians, an audience of men and women, of whites, blacks, Latinos (and did you see the Indian sardar on CNN!),...

Jesus says, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 While researching the source of Michelle Obama’s alleged “whitey” rant, we discovered direct connections between the Nation of Islam (NOI), Stokely Carmichael, Jeremiah Wright’s Black Liberation Theology and, most prominently, Louis Farrakhan. According to Larry Johnson’s sources, the Michelle Obama tape captures her in sordid company: The sources who have seen the tape report...

Whitey Need Not Apply by Patrick J. Buchanan "Will race be an issue in this campaign?" Hearing the cable talk-show host solemnly pose the question, I could not suppress a belly laugh. For the anchor was fearful that some white folks might reject Obama because he is African-American -- even as a Rasmussen poll was reporting that Barack is beating McCain among black voters 94 to 1. What, other than race, explains how Barack rolled up 90-10 margins among black voters while running against Hillary Clinton, wife of the man novelist Toni Morrison dubbed "our first black president"?

In 1828, President John Quincy Adams's reelection campaign reportedly traded on innuendoes that Rachel Jackson had been imperfectly divorced from her first husband. Since her second husband, Andrew Jackson, once killed a man in a duel for the same insult to his wife's honor, Adams was perhaps lucky to lose no more than the presidency to Old Hickory. So, while there are abundant signs that Republicans this year are itching to take the practice to new lows, let's not forget that attacks on first ladies, actual or putative, go back a long way. And for all of the fear in...

How a onetime hero of the liberal blogosphere and the Democratic Party spread perhaps the most damaging anti-Obama smear of the primary. On May 13, 2006, Larry C. Johnson -- former CIA intelligence officer, counterterrorism pundit, classmate of Valerie Plame -- put up a breaking post claiming that Karl Rove was under federal indictment for perjury and lying to investigators looking into the leaking of Plame's identity. "Rove Indicted," Johnson blogged. "Frog march the bastard. As Freddie Mercury sang, 'another one bites the dust.'" The post linked to the investigative site TruthOut, and an anonymously sourced story that it turned...

The Michelle Obama Rant Tape was filmed between June 26th - July 1st 2004 in Chicago, IL at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference at Trinity United Church: specifically the Women's Event. Michelle Obama appeared as a panelist alongside Mrs. Khadijah Farrakhan and Mrs. James Meeks. Bill Clinton spoke during the Conference, as did Bill Cosby and other speakers, but not at the panel Michelle attended. Michelle Obama spoke at the Women's Event, but referenced Bill Clinton in her rant --- his presence at the conference was the impetus for her raving, it seems. For about 30 minutes, Michelle Obama launched into...

MIDI - DON'T MAKE ME OVER

Michelle Obama's eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image. Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of "whitey." Obama shakes her head. "You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be," she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom,...

Michelle and Allahpundit are right — if the media is going to write about the debunked "whitey" tape, particularly as a trigger for Obama's anti-smear site, there's really no excuse for not mentioning the two sources more responsible than anyone else for hyping the story: pro-Hillary blogger Larry Johnson and Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, who appeared on Fox News claiming a "mighty big shoe" was about to drop regarding Michelle Obama. (Now Beckel accuses conservatives of spreading rumors about her.) Did conservative bloggers write about the tape as well? Sure, but with varying degrees of skepticism. Allah finds the "conservative...

'Whitey' fails to wound Fellow slurs snicker at word's utterance Tribune staff report June 15, 2008 It's hard to come up with an ethnic slur that has less of a sting than "whitey." Are there really white people out there so ignorant of history, so unaware of the nuances of language and so threatened by minority grievances that they take genuine umbrage at the term "whitey"? To be truly offensive, a derogatory term needs to have an ominous context that "whitey" lacks. Those who take offense are confusing prejudice—which is making negative assumptions about people based solely on external characteristics,...

Barack Obama campaign starts new Web site to fight smears from political opponents at www.fightthesmears.com. The first smear mentioned: "LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word 'whitey' from the pulpit of Trinity United." Well. No. This is what Limbaugh said: "The rumor is -- and we don't like dealing with rumors here -- but the rumor is that Michelle Obama from the pulpit of this church used the term 'whitey.' Some are saying be very careful with this because she might have said 'why'd he,' why did he, the contraction 'why'd he' instead of...

"Fightthesmears.com" could be "FighttheDiscussion.com" Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about his campaign." --NEDRA PICKLER, AP The Obama campaign is now going to be spending more time addressing rumors? "Yesterday I wrote about the new team that the Barack Obama campaign was building to counter internet rumor as well as deal with inconvenient truths, by way of offering the "party line" on how to counter the rumors or the damaging truths." --Susan Duclos, Wake Up America...

As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it's not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don't-go-there approach was Barack Obama's plan for months until, on the candidate's first full day of campaigning as his party's presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the...

CNN contributor Roland Martin, a known Barack Obama sympathizer, surprisingly isn’t buying the argument that conservatives/Republicans are behind the rumored Michelle Obama "whitey" comment. During a segment on Thursday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," substitute anchor Campbell Brown asked Martin, "Republicans have made it clear, pretty much, that Michelle is fair game here. Are you surprised by the intensity of the attacks?" He replied, "I'm not surprised by it, but I think, also, we can't blame Republicans for everything. It's these idiot Democrats that started some of this stuff." When Brown asked what he meant by that, Martin dropped the names of...

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."

Campaign no longer ignoring Internet rumors about speech by Michelle -- it's launching Web site to push back WASHINGTON -- When I phoned the Obama press shop a few times in recent weeks to check out rumors about whether there was a videotape with Michelle Obama using the word "whitey," the campaign declined to issue a denial or to pass along the question to Michelle's staff to find out what might be fueling the rumors. That's been a standard tactic in dealing with the mainstream press. Unless there is some evidence, ignore the matter and reporters for mainstream outlets probably...

In that article (linked in the previous post) Karen Tumulty reports the Obama campaign learned of the rumor one full month before Larry Johnson did and ran it on his website! So clearly the Obama campaign has its own sources about this supposed tape. Now another blogger has torn apart the ‘truth’ posted on the Obama site and notes that the Obama site confirms Michelle Obama did speak at the Rainbow/Push convention!

Michelle Obama Says “Whitey” On a Tape Lie: On May 30th, Rush Limbaugh said he had heard a rumor that a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word “Whitey” from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ. Truth: No such tape exists. Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word. Lie: Blogger Larry Johnson wrote on May 31st that he would add “New and dramatic developments. This is a heads up. I’ll post the news Monday morning by 0900 hours. Now I know why people who have seen the videotape...

Obama campaign: Wife never used the word 'Whitey' By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about himself and his wife. The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against "whitey" in a diatribe at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has launched a Web site to dispel rumors about his faith and patriotism and his wife's views on race that have dogged his candidacy for more than a year.

Obama site confronts rumors 16 minutes ago Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech. The campaign has created a new Web site to debunk rumors about the Obamas, http://www.fightthesmears.com. The rumor that Michelle Obama used the word "whitey" in a diatribe at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and that a videotape exists, has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The church, from which the Obamas recently resigned, had been home to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who came...

If everybody in America saw this video -- that really makes it clear, in his own words, how much Barack Obama despises white people -- he'd lose in a landslide. PS: Just in case you were wondering, this was apparently put together by a Hillary supporter and it is extremely powerful. (The video is at the link)

    A commenter clued me in on a site called Ex-Hillary Supporters For John McCain and some comments left by the site owner Ed recently about the “Whitey” Michelle Obama tape. He purports to have heard two minutes of the tape over the phone. Here he is answering questions from visitors on this site: Yes, I heard about 2 minutes of her ranting at Bill Clinton and Hillary over the phone. Ed Yes, it is a DVD, I only heard the audio part, they would not send me a sample. I understand that it is over 30 minutes long...

Sometimes, this rumor of this alleged tape of Michelle Obama denouncing “whitey” sounds like something out of a clichéd political thriller novel. Actually, it sounds exactly like something out of a clichéd political thriller novel. Specifically, Stephen Frey’s The Power Broker, published in 2006 by Ballantine Books. A major plot line of the novel is the presidential campaign of Democrat Jesse Wood, aiming to be the country’s first African American president — “Wood was handsome, smart, charismatic, and being mentioned increasingly often in the press as someone who could unite a twenty-first century America growing more, not less, racially and...

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund Annual Conference Womans Luncheon M.C.’s: Cheryl Burton and Karen Jordan, ABC 7 Keynote Speaker: Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. Special Guests: Shoshana Johnson, Retired United States Military Michelle Obama, University of Chicago

Update: Gateway Pundit has an audio tape of Obama blaming “white folks greed” for war and famine as cruise ships throw away more food in a day than starving children see in a year (complain to the government agencies which don’t allow left over food to be distributed, don’t go blaming Whitey):

Can’t blame him, although I don’t know how you solve this prisoner’s dilemma in an Internet age. One site floats the rumor, word spreads via e-mail, a few other sites blog it, another dozen sites reason that it’s gaining currency as a meme and already Google-able so there’s no reason to ignore it, and it’s off to the races. The media gets wind of it, checks it out, maybe runs a public advisory story debunking it (e.g., “No evidence of Michelle Obama tape”), and finally puts a question to the candidate himself to give him a chance to blow it...

Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't. The "Michelle Bombshell," I'm talking about. You know the one, the rumored tape no one has seen, in which Michelle Obama is purported to rant about the evils of "Whitey." Well, whether or not it exists, the DUmmies and KOmmies are very much exercised about it. They have posted on multitudinous threads, with varying degrees of flame-ation. Most think the tape doesn't exist, and are angry that anyone even brings up the subject. They accuse each other of "concern trolling" (a new term to me), meaning that when someone posts a thread saying...

Obama denies a rumor and questions the question Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday batted down rumors circulating on the Internet and mentioned on some cable news shows of the existence of a video of his wife using a derogatory term for white people, and criticized a reporter for asking him about the rumor, which has not a shred of evidence to support it. “We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said to the McClatchy...

Bill Cosby pleaded with blacks to stop blaming the "white man" for their problems on Thursday, and he reiterated his harsh critique of the current state of African-American culture. "It is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us, and it keeps a person frozen in their seat. It keeps you frozen in your hole that you are sitting in to point up and say, 'That's the reason why I am here.' We need to stop this," Cosby said in an address before Jesse Jackson's 33rd Annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference in Chicago.

Hillary to suspend campaign in DC Saturday By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, June 5, 2008 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce the suspension of her campaign and her endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's nominee, Saturday, in Washington D.C according to a statement issued Wednesday evening. The statement did not officially confirm her decision but said Clinton would be hosting an event in Washington, DC to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. According to the statement, the event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters...

NEW YORK - Michelle Obama will be a guest host on "The View" on June 18. The popular ABC daytime talk show had invited her to be a guest this month, but she sent back word that she would like to be a host like Cindy McCain did in April, said Bill Geddie, the show's executive producer. "Equal time — that's hard to argue with," he said Wednesday.Being a guest host will allow Michelle Obama to help interview guests and participate in the opening "hot topics," or banter about what's in the news that day. It offers the chance for...

Hillary's not the ticket By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW On a hot summer night in July 1980, an unorthodox idea floated around the halls of the Republican National Convention in Detroit. Started by the party's "Howard Baker wing," the buzz suggested it would be a good idea for the GOP to have nominee Ronald Reagan pick former President Gerald Ford as his running mate. To the Baker wing, that would solve their perception of Reagan being too conservative to win and would bring a fractured party together. But the former president would have none of it. Ford was no fan of...

A Brief History of Long-Rumored, Never-Appearing Scandals A few readers don't share my skepticism about the alleged Michelle Obama tape, and wonder why I doubt the HillBuzz account, because it is so "detailed." Just as Robert George wrote this post on Ragged Thots about urban legends and Democratic nominee's wives, I was talking to someone who spent a good chunk of the 1988 campaign trying to track down a long-rumored photo of Kitty Dukakis throwing feces at the American flag in the 1960s. He never found it, and doubts that it ever happened, but he kept running into people who...

All I can say is after reading this from a pro-Hillary site, the author either has a vivid imagination or Obama is about to be put in a world of hurt by his wife: The Michelle Obama Rant Tape was filmed between June 26th - July 1st 2004 in Chicago, IL at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference at Trinity United Church: specifically the Women's Event. Michelle Obama appeared as a panelist alongside Mrs. Khadijah Farrakhan and Mrs. James Meeks. Bill Clinton spoke during the Conference, as did Bill Cosby and other speakers, but not at the panel Michelle attended. Michelle Obama...

Well, today is supposed to be the day the big, huge, bad, devastating, apocalyptic, {insert-dire-adjective-here} political "bombshell" is supposed to drop on Senator The Obama's head. Which... um... (looking around)...so far, no "boom." So I am proposing we mount a "Bombshell Watch." And thus, I make the first log entry: 6:13am PT — so far, no "boom" In the meanwhile, you can (if you like) read my own prediction Man your posts, FReepers!

Manning: Clinton has won nomination Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito Pastor James David Manning, posted an “urgent message to Sen. Hillary Clinton” via You-Tube video today claiming that Clinton “without a doubt has won the nomination for the presidency for the Democratic Party.” In the video, Manning, pastor of ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem, N.Y., compares Clinton’s courage to that of former Pakistan leader Benazir Bhutto, Clinton's wisdom and poise to that of Cleopatra, and Clinton's leadership strength to that of Deborah of the Old Testament.

Bob Beckel Seems Very Worried.

As many of you know, there has been an ever-shifting intenet rumor launched publicly by an extremely unreliable pro-Clinton blogger, Larry Johnson, that there is a video recording of Michelle Obama saying some intemperate things at Trinity United Church. ... Until today, the rumors have been too vague to be debunked, but now . . . a specific conference for the remarks has been specified: the 2004 Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Annual Conference starting on June 26, 2004. To get the information necessary to put this matter to bed, I drove over to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition National Headquarters, which is in the...

It sounds worse than I imagined....For about 30 minutes, Michelle Obama launched into a rant about the evils of America, and how America is to blame for the problems of Africa. Michelle personally blamed President Clinton for the deaths of millions of Africans and said America is responsible for the genocide of the Tutsis and other ethnic groups. She then launched into an attack on “whitey”, and talked about solutions to black on black crime in the realm of diverting those actions onto white America. Her rant was fueled by the crowd: they reacted strongly to what she said, so...