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At a press conference Wednesday in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott almost said something profound. Almost. Asked by reporters about gun laws in Texas, Abbott responded by talking about the need for more “mental health-resources” — a catch-all term often bandied about by Republican politicians in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Uvalde, in which 19 elementary school kids and two teachers were killed by a deeply disturbed 18-year-old. Abbott, though, began going in a different direction with his response. He noted that 18-year-olds have been able to buy rifles...

The throng of Asian-American donors drew closer, drinks in hand, to hear Barack Obama's sister describe the wide arc of his life: beyond politics and Chicago, into his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii. To many in this crowd Obama's Asian-American half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, represents yet another aspect of Obama's identity that makes him unique as a presidential candidate, although it has been underplayed amid the excitement surrounding his shot at becoming the first black president. "It would be the first time that the first family is comprised in part of Asian-Americans _ as well as African-Americans, of course," said Keith...

A crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet “war room” to track and respond aggressively to online rumours that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and a Muslim. As he gears up for his general election fight against John McCain, Mr Obama and his chief advisers are aware of the danger of such rumours, amid polling data showing that a significant number of Americans believe he is a Muslim or are suspicious about his background. Such doubts were a factor in his poor showing with white, blue-collar voters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton. In recent days Mr...

Obama Says Some Have `hijacked' Faith Jun 23 03:24 PM US/Eastern By STEPHEN SINGER Associated Press Writer HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right- wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division. "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked," the Democratic presidential candidate said in remarks prepared for delivery before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ. "Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of...

DARTMOUTH, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama said Monday that he expects his performance in next week's presidential debate to improve from his first head-to-head match-up with the other Democratic contenders last month in South Carolina. "I assume it will get better as time goes on," the Illinois Democrat answered after being asked whether he expects to receive better reviews at the New Hampshire Democratic presidential debate being held Sunday, June 3rd at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. The South Carolina Democratic presidential debate was the Illinois senator's first such event and his performance was rated by political analysts...

Despite questions about the country's readiness for a black president, Barack Obama will win the race for the 2008 White House if he connects with Americans, his wife Michelle Obama told "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts in her first major morning television interview. "I think that the American people ... are ready to have somebody that they can believe in and that they can connect to," Obama said in an interview that begins Tuesday. "And I think that if Barack does what he's supposed to do and this campaign is ... run well, and he can be clear and...

US Democratic presidential hope Barack Obama polished his national security credentials on Wednesday, introducing a Senate bill encouraging investors to cash out of projects which benefit Iran. Obama, who most national polls have in second place in the Democratic field behind Hillary Clinton, targeted Iran's lucrative oil and gas industry in a bill spurred by the US belief the Islamic Republic is building nuclear arms. The measure, also introduced in the House of Representatives by lawmakers Barney Frank and Tom Lantos, would help investors and state and local governments divest from instruments which benefit Iran. "The Iranian government uses the...

The religion of the left seems to be environmentalism, and the everyone knows what happens when religious figures on the right are exposed as hypocrites. Ted Haggard, Jim Baker and others have claimed to stand for one thing and privately lived a life that conflicted with their stated beliefs, and the media covered it non-stop. In contrast, the media ignore that the darling of the Democratic presidential candidates has again been nailed as an environmental hypocrite. Barack Obama was outed as an SUV driver in 2006, who said at the same time, "the blame for the world's higher temperature rests...

Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died. The death toll was 12. "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser. Obama mentioned the disaster in Greensburg, Kan., in saying he had been told by the office of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that the state's National Guard had been depleted by its...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Is MySpace always mine or can it belong to someone else? At the cost of losing 160,000 friends, Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign has taken over control of the MySpace page listed under his name on the popular social networking site. For the past two and a half years, the page has been run by an Obama supporter from Los Angeles named Joe Anthony. At first, that arrangement was fine with the Obama team, which worked with Anthony on the content and even had the password to make changes themselves. But as the site exploded in popularity...

Soon it will be time for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to face a moment of truth and decide whether he is going to lead the anti-war movement or cave in under administration pressure. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) move toward an accommodation with the White House over funding for the war in Iraq, they are also moving toward a civil war within their own party. If Pelosi and Reid agree to give Bush a new bill providing funding for the war without a deadline for troop withdrawal, they will redeem their party’s...

...Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will...

Barack Hussein Obama stumbled during the first Democratic debate

Sen. Barack Obama emerged as the big winner at Thursday's first Democratic presidential debate. It's not so much that he scored a knockout punch, or that he was head and shoulders above any of the other candidates — in fact, it's the opposite. Obama held his own with the others, particularly vis-à-vis his chief rival, Hillary Clinton. He clearly showed that he belonged on the stage with his longer-serving rivals. In doing so, he helped vanquish his leading negative: inexperience. The polls indicate that experience is Hillary Clinton's leading virtue in the eyes of her supporters; her experience is clearly...

Paul Tudor Jones, the wealthy hedge fund manager, has become the latest in a growing band from his profession to throw their weight behind Barack Obama, the US senator vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr Jones is said to be planning to host a 500-guest fundraiser for Mr Obama on May 19. The event will be held at Mr Jones’s seaside mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, a big US centre for hedge funds. “The whole of Greenwich is backing Obama,” said one leading US businessman. Hedge fund managers, whose newly found wealth has made them attractive targets for presidential hopefuls,...

That was fast. The Sun-Times broke the story about Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record)'s relationship with Tony Rezko on Monday, but I think we may have already reached the point where Obama's reaction to the story is drawing more attention than the particulars of the story itself. Carol Marin, a reporter for NBC 5 and a columnist for the Sun-Times, puts the boot in today: Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics. Open. Transparent. Different. But put the pedal to the metal and ask Illinois' junior senator new and serious questions about...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said Tuesday that America needs to ask Israel to help change the status quo in its conflict with the Palestinians, the only candidate at a National Jewish Democratic Council conference to suggest that there is any onus on the Jewish state when it comes to making peace with its neighbors."The United States government and an Obama presidency cannot ask Israel to take risks with respect to its security," he told the crowd of Democratic activists and campaign contributors. "But it can ask Israel to say that it is still possible for us to allow more...

CHICAGO - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that President Bush has fallen short in his role as leader of the free world, and the 2008 election is a chance to change that. "This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open. And it is time to fill that role once more," Obama said in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The Illinois senator was in his hometown to deliver a foreign policy address that was...

NEW YORK (AP) - Wooing black voters while tackling questions about his experience, Democrat Barack Obama said Saturday that his years as a community organizer and accomplishments in the Illinois state Senate have prepared him well for the presidency. Addressing the National Action Network, a civil rights group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama touted his successes as an Illinois lawmaker in providing health insurance to children and reducing the price of prescription drugs for senior citizens. He also told of passing legislation to monitor racial profiling and to require that police interrogations of suspects in capital cases be videotaped....

A woman's tearful plea to Barack Obama to end the Iraq war momentarily caught the Democratic Presidential candidate off guard during a public appearance in Nashua yesterday. "I can't breathe," said the woman......more at link