Minotaur029 wrote:

Newsweek wrote:After she worked for the city for a couple of years, Barack led Michelle closer to community activism. He was on the board of a start-up group called Public Allies, a nonprofit that encouraged young people to go into public service—just the kind of encouragement she felt she had never gotten. The organization needed a Chicago director. The job paid even less than her city post. "It sounded risky and just out there," she says. "But for some reason it just spoke to me. This was the first time I said, 'This is what I say I care about. Right here. And I will have to run it'." (Michelle jokes that she took a pay cut with every new job. The couple finally got rich when Barack's book, "The Audacity of Hope," became a best seller.)

Rick Reuben wrote:Dallas Star-Telegram reporting on an odd security decision at an Obama rally Wednesday:

Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on.

“Sure,” said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a “friendly crowd.”

The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.

Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.

“How can you not be concerned in this day and age,” said one policeman.

And a follow-up story:

The U.S. Secret Service on Friday defended its handling of security during a huge rally in downtown Dallas for Barack Obama, saying there was no "lapse" in its "comprehensive and layered security plan," which called for some people to be checked for weapons while others were not.

A report in the Star-Telegram that said some security measures were lifted during Wednesday's rally sparked a public outrage across the country, with most people saying they were shocked that a routine weapons search was lifted at the front gates of Reunion Arena an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/490522.html

Rick Reuben wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:there, fixed

Heh... up until late 2007, Obama was one of the panhandlers that I consistently turned down because he stunk of booze. Glad he pulled himself together.

jayryan wrote:dianogah and obama on the same website?

R.F.F. wrote:Also, Cincinnati and Columbus, OH (Hamilton County) are going to have massive voter issues. A lot of the polling places have been changed and people are really confused.

Marsupialized wrote:Obama took Vermont, Hillary took Rhode Island.
Texas looks like it may go Obama and Ohio is going Hillary.