National News
Obama rejects skinhead threat
CHESTER, Pennsylvania (AFP) – Barack Obama said he was not worried about threats to his life as he vies to become the first black US president, saying that hate groups have been marginalized by his candidacy.
"I think what's been striking about this campaign is the degree to which these kind of hate groups have been marginalized. That's not who America is. That's not what our future is," Democrat Obama told Pennsylvania television station KDKA late Monday.
"What I've found is that people here, they don't care what color you are. What they're trying to figure out is who can deliver," he said.
Asked if he was concerned about his safety, Obama said no.
"I've got the best folks in the world -- the Secret Service," he said.
On Monday authorities announced the arrest of two white supremacists for threatening to assassinate Obama during a "killing spree" of some 100 African-Americans.
Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were arrested Wednesday in Tennessee for possession of firearms, threats against a candidate running for president and conspiring to rob a gun store, the Department of Justice said.
The men began "discussing going on a 'killing spree' that included killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans," Brian Weaks, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told a Memphis court Monday.
"They further stated that their final act of violence would be to attempt to kill/assassinate presidential candidate Barack Obama," he added, as the two men appeared before the federal court.
Cowart, from Bells, Tennessee, and Schlesselman, from Arkansas, met via the Internet a month ago and have "very strong beliefs and views regarding 'White Power' and 'skinhead' views," Weaks told the court.
The pair, who had stockpiled guns, planned to steal a high-powered rifle from a gun store in Jackson, Tennessee and finance their bloody plan through a series of robberies.
"Schlesselman stated that they planned to drive their vehicles as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows," Weaks said.
"Both individuals stated they would dress in all-white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt. Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt."
Obama, who has made history by becoming the first black presidential nominee of a major political party, is under the protection of the US Secret Service -- which guards the president -- as a White House candidate. Their protection for him began much earlier in the campaign than any other presidential candidate.
In late August, the alarm was also raised when it was revealed three men were arrested with a weapons cache in Denver, Colorado where the Democratic party convention was being held. US attorneys later said there had been no credible threat against Obama.
Palin: 'Far-left wing of the Democrat Party’ could takeover
LAKEWOOD, Ohio (CNN) – With her voice beginning to crack on this final marathon day of campaigning, Sarah Palin promised an audience in Ohio: “We will win!”
“You can just feel it here,” she said at a rally in the Cleveland suburbs. “You can just feel it here in Ohio, victory's coming, we can do this, we can win, we can win Ohio. And we must win for you.”
The crowd chanted “We will win! We will win!” throughout her remarks. At one point, Palin warned with urgency: “We must win.”
“We must win,” she said, “because Ohio, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, not mainstream Democrat ideology, the values, the planks in the platform of the Democrat Party. It's the far-left wing of the party is getting ready to take over the entire federal government.”
Palin again accused Barack Obama of wanting to bankrupt the coal industry, citing an interview the Democrat gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January in which he discussed his “aggressive” cap-and-trade proposal to limit carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Just yesterday, revelation, an audiotape surfaces,” Palin argued, despite the fact that the Obama interview has been posted online for nine months. “People are starting to hear in his own words what Sen. Obama’s intention is for the coal industry. You got to hear this tape. You’re going to hear Obama saying it, talking about bankruptcy, bankruptcy there in the coal industry. He’s explaining all this to the San Francisco Chronicle, and he says …”
Palin was interrupted by an audience member who shouted “Liberal!”
She continued: “And there must be something about San Francisco and he because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum where when he’s there, he seems to be more candid, and remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the cling-ons, all of us, I guess, you know holding on to religion and guns and, um, so something about he being there in San Francisco.”
Obama says attacks on wife 'completely out of bounds'
CNN – Looking back at his two-year marathon for the presidency, Barack Obama told CBS he was most angered by "right-wing" attacks on his wife, Michelle, and said many of them were "completely out of bounds."
"I do believe there is a Republican or right-wing media outlet, or set of media outlets, that went after my wife for a while in a way that I thought was just completely out of bounds," Obama told CBS' Katie Couric in an interview that aired Monday morning.
"Frankly, I would never have considered or expected my allies to do something comparable to the spouse of an opponent. I just feel like family are civilians."
Mrs. Obama took particular heat from conservative circles for comments she made during the primary season, when she said that for the first time in her adult life "I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." Those comments were highlighted by several Republican state party chapters in an effort to paint the potential first lady as angry, leading the Democratic presidential nominee to call on them to "lay off my wife" in an ABC interview in May.
Mrs. Obama was also been labeled "Obama's baby mama," by Fox News and "Mrs. Grievance" by the conservative National Review. Some conservative outlets also buzzed last summer about the possibility of a tape, which has never appeared, that showed her using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church. The Obama campaign said Mrs. Obama had never uttered the word and that no tape existed.
"I just feel like family are civilians, and they don't sign up for this stuff… They really should be bystanders in this process, even if they're campaigning for you," Obama told CBS in the interview that aired Monday.
Protesters make noise at Biden event
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) – Just two days after completing a three-day bus tour of central and southern Florida, Joe Biden is back in the state for three events Sunday, this time in the north as part of campaign’s final battleground state push before Tuesday’s election.
On the campus of Florida State University Sunday morning, Biden continued to deliver the campaign’s ‘closing arguments’ that include a plea to supporters to reach out to Republicans after the election in order to bridge the partisan divide.
For the first time since being named the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a small group of McCain and Palin supporters tried to interrupt the Delaware senator’s remarks from the public sidewalk about 150 yards from the podium. Their chants inaudible through a megaphone, they took to using the device’s siren to disrupt.
Biden referred to “the people in the parking lot” four times, using them as an example of those that Democrats will have to reach out to after Tuesday.
“I mean it literally. Not a joke. I know you find some of that obnoxious,” said Biden. “We gotta end this. Somebody's got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”
There’s also a practical reason, Biden argued, legislation won't be able to pass without bi-partisan support.
“You think we're going to get education reform? You think we're going to re-establish and end this war and re-establish our place in the world without getting a significant portion of Republicans to agree with us as well? No one party can do this.”
Barack Obama and Biden have been targeting McCain and Palin over the past two days for the endorsement they received from Dick Cheney on Saturday, asking if any more proof is needed that this Republican ticket would be a continuation of the Bush-Cheney administration.
“Folks, John McCain and Sarah Palin can have Dick Cheney’s endorsement,” said Biden, We’ll settle for people like Warren Buffett and Colin Powell.”
After Sunday in Florida, Biden continues the swing state tour in the campaign’s final hours, heading to Missouri Monday morning, Ohio in the afternoon and Philadelphia at night. After voting at home in Wilmington Tuesday morning, he will visit at least one more swing state before joining Barack Obama in Chicago.
