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PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Monday, June 2, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Rev. Pfleger: "America is the greatest sin against God"
In
another excerpt from Rev. Michael Pfleger's sermon last Sunday, May
25, from the pulpit of Sen. Barack Obama's now former church, Trinity
United Church of Christ on the South side of Chicago, the longtime
Obama associate condemns America for racism in fairly harsh terms.
Watch HERE.
"Racism is still America's greatest addiction," Pfleger says. "I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."
Dean derides 'sexist' media coverage
"There
has been an enormous amount of sexism in this campaign on the part of
the media, including the mainstream media," Dean said on ABCs This
Week with George Stephanopoulos. "Well leave present company excepted,
because I think that's true. But there have been major networks that
have featured numerous outrageous comments that if the words were
reversed and they were about race, the people would have been fired."
Dean noted that candidates and supporters can get over losing a race.
What you don't get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on
somebody because they happen to be a woman running for president of
the United States, the party chairman said.
DNC officials say Florida, Michigan delegates will be seated, but get 1/2 votes
Democratic
Party officials agreed Saturday to seat Michigan and Florida delegates
with half-votes, ruling on a long-running dispute that has threatened
the party's chances in November and maintaining Barack Obama's
front-runner status as he moves closer to the nomination.
Ickes' threat:
The decision was a blow to Hillary Rodham Clinton as she was on the verge of watching Obama make history as the first black Democratic presidential nominee. It prompted an irate reaction from boisterous Clinton supporters in the audience and her chief delegate counter, Harold Ickes.
Ickes angrily informed the party's Rules Committee that Clinton had instructed him to reserve her right to appeal the matter to the Democrats' credentials committee, which could potentially drag the matter to the party's convention in August.
video: Clinton supporter rage
Ted
Kennedy undergoes brain surgery today
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will undergo brain surgery this morning and follow up with radiation and chemotherapy in an attempt to treat the malignant brain tumor that caused a seizure and hospitalization last month...
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts
In AIPAC speech, McCain hits Obama on Iran, Iraq
Senator
John McCain of Arizona used a speech to the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby,
to lambaste Senator Barack Obama on two fronts: he
charged that Mr. Obama’s calls for diplomacy with Iran
were misguided and insufficient, and that his proposal
to begin withdrawing United States troops from Iraq
would lead to chaos in the region and endanger Israel.
McCain visits Walter Reed medical center
John McCain yesterday paid a quiet visit to Walter Reed, the Army's giant medical center in Washington, D.C., a campaign aide confirms.
The aide declined to comment on the nature of the visit, saying it was "personal in nature."
Walter Reed is where thousands of wounded Iraq and
Afghanistan veterans have gone to receive treatment, and
presumably the candidate met with such veterans.
Hillary Clinton... today's headlines with excerpts
Hillary considering challenging new magic number of delegates
After
she won Puerto Rico last night, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, was asked
if she may challenge the new "magic number" of delegates the
Democratic National Committee says is needed to clinch the nomination
-- 2,118.
"That’s a question we’re going to be considering," Clinton said. "Because obviously I still believe, I was pleased that the electoral results of the primaries were accepted that was the basis for the decisions that were made which is something I've been arguing for months as you know. And I was also pleased that Florida was fully seated but the half vote penalty I think is unwarranted under the circumstances and I thought Michigan was in violation of the rules so we’re going to decide how to proceed and depending upon what the outcome of that decision is we will either mount a challenge or not but obviously it would have an impact on the number of delegates necessary to pledge the nomination."
Hillary seeks to go after Obama superdelegates
The former first lady enters this week with an insurgent strategy not only to win over undecided superdelegates but to peel away Obama's support from those party leaders and elected officials who already have committed to back him for the nomination.
"One thing about superdelegates is that they can change their minds," she told reporters aboard her campaign plane Sunday night.
Winning again (in Puerto Rico), Clinton weighs her options
Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton won another overwhelming victory over Senator
Barack Obama on Sunday — this time in Puerto Rico — even as many
Democrats, including some of her supporters, suggested it would be
best if she dropped her threat to battle on past the end of the
primary voting on Tuesday....
... In a telephone interview Sunday from San Juan, P.R., Mrs. Clinton still raised the possibility that she would challenge the party’s decision on seating those delegates. “Well, we are going to look at that and make a determination at some point,” she said. “But I haven’t made any decision at this time.”
Hillary is shedding staff
...advance staffers -- most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana -- are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed -- at least -- some of its staff. The advance staff is responsible for arranging the candidate's events around the country...
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Obama quits his church
Sen.
Barack Obama, D-Ill., today resigned from his controversial church,
Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago.
Obama had been in discussions about resigning with his church's new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss before the latest controversy, which involved a longtime friend of Obama's, Father Michael Pfleger, mocking Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, just last Sunday form the church's pulpit, using racially charged language, to the apparent delight of the congregation...
Obama-Pfleger relationship spans decades, $$$
Obama's relationship with Pfleger -- who is the priest at a different, Catholic, church -- spans decades.
In September, the Obama campaign brought Pfleger to Iowa to host one of several interfaith forums for the campaign. Pfleger has given money to Obama's campaigns and Obama as a state legislator directed at least $225,000 towards social programs at St. Sabina's, according to the Chicago Tribune. Pfleger appears to have been scrubbed from the Obama campaign's page that features the testimony of faith leaders, but you can see the cached version HERE.
Rev. Pfleger: 'They want to kill me'
The
Rev. Michael Pfleger, who helped reignite Barack Obama's pastor
problems by mocking Hillary Clinton, said this evening he's received
"thousands of hate threats" since his videotaped pulpit rant.
"They want to kill me," Pfleger told parishioners during a service in a St. Sabina Church chapel on Chicago's South Side this evening. "It's been very ugly."
A battered feeling at Obama's former church
First came the endless television coverage of incendiary statements by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., their controversial former pastor. Then reports of a visiting Roman Catholic priest -- Rev. Michael Pfleger -- who had mocked Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And finally on Sunday, a day after Mr. Obama announced that his family was leaving the church, satellite trucks idling again outside the 7:30 a.m. service...
...“We, the community of Trinity, are concerned, hurt, shocked, dismayed, frustrated, fearful and heartbroken,” Mr. Moss wrote to his members. “Our hearts break at this moment and my limited vocabulary is inadequate to describe the range of emotions flooding our spirits at this time. We are caught, it seems, in a strange Greek tragic-comedy. In the words of Jean Paul-Sartre, with ‘no exit.’ We are a wounded people and the bruises from our encounter with history have scarred our very souls.”
see video of Rev. Pfleger at Trinity
Ralph Nader... today's headlines with excerpts
view more past news & headlines
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