Daily News - 7/30/2008 - While You Were Canoodling With Mr. Brown


July 30th, 2007

FBI raids U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska)

More in GOP Want Iraq Military Limits

An interview with Barack Obama about energy and the environment

Giuliani says Democrats would give U.S. a �nanny government�

Out of right field, conservatives gush over Clinton

Clinton Campaign Insulted By Cleavage Article

Opinion: John Edwards, A Turn to the Left

Edwards says fence along entire southern border “crazy”

Californians for Obama Raises Thousands of Dollars but the Candidate Hasn’t Seen Any of It

D.M. officer challenges pullout idea: Terrorists will strike again, he tells Richardson

McCain: Reforming veterans’ care won’t be cheap, must be done

Opinion: McCain Revival Would Threaten Consultants

Obama Calls for Uniter in White House

Wildcat Obama fundraising site may shut down: Official campaign wants L.A. group to cease activities

Obama: I won’t get as many endorsements because I haven’t traded favors



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Are Republicans Anxious About 2008?


July 30th, 2007

Jim Snyder in The Hill reports that some are.

“The only thing that has changed is that everything that was bad got worse,” said Bernadette Budde, political director of the Business Industry Political Action Committee. BIPAC supports business-friendly candidates of both parties, though most of the group’s donations go to Republicans.

If the election were held today, “We’d be lucky to hold our own,” one House Republican said.

Skepticism isn’t universal. Some see hope in Congress’s own low approval ratings. Voters, they argue, are frustrated at the Democrats’ inability to deliver on campaign promises.

But others say leading indicators suggest Democrats will win the White House and both the House and Senate for the first time since 1994. Most sources doubt a repeat of 2006, when Republicans dropped 30 seats in the House.

But a Democratic pick-up of a few seats in the Senate, for example, when coupled with taking the White House, would have serious implications for major issues like global warming, stem cell research and judicial appointments.



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ABC News Chronicles Obama’s Work on Behalf of Lobbyists


July 29th, 2007

From ABC News:

But last year, at the request of a hired representative for an Australian-owned chemical corporation Nufarm, Senator Barack Obama introduced nine separate bills exempting the company from import fees on a range of chemical ingredients it uses in the manufacture of pesticides and herbicides. Nufarm’s U.S. subsidiary is based in Illinois.

Nufarm wasn’t the only beneficiary of Obama’s efforts to reduce customs fees and duties. In early May of 2006, two Washington lobbyists registered to work on behalf of Astellas Pharma, a Japanese-owned drug company which also has offices in Illinois.

The lobbyists’ task? “Introduce legislation to temporarily suspend customs duties for the importation of a pharmaceutical ingredient,” they wrote on their lobbying forms. Less than three weeks later, the men had earned their $20,000 fee, thanks to Obama. On May 26, he introduced S. 3155, a bill specifically exempting Astellas’ key ingredient from tariff payments. The bill cost the federal government more than $1 million in lost revenue, according to government estimates.

Together, Obama’s obscure measures — known as tariff suspensions — steered more than $12 million away from federal coffers, according to government estimates.



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In the ’60s, a Future Candidate Poured Her Heart Out in Letters


July 28th, 2007

From the NY Times:

They were high school friends from Park Ridge, Ill., both high achievers headed East to college. John Peavoy was a bookish film buff bound for Princeton, Hillary Rodham a driven, civic-minded Republican going off to Wellesley. They were not especially close, but they found each other smart and interesting and said they would try to keep in touch.

Which they did, prodigiously, exchanging dozens of letters between the late summer of 1965 and the spring of 1969. Ms. Rodham’s 30 dispatches are by turns angst-ridden and prosaic, glib and brooding, anguished and ebullient — a rare unfiltered look into the head and heart of a future first lady and would-be president. Their private expressiveness stands in sharp contrast to the ever-disciplined political persona she presents to the public now.

Clinton writes like an episode of Dawns Creek.



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Obama staffer arrested in Iowa


July 28th, 2007

From CNN:

intern working for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was arrested Friday at the Des Moines airport after authorities flagged an outstanding arrest warrant for aggravated battery in Illinois.Derrick Lamon Johnson, 20, of Glen Carbon, Ill., was also charged with fleeing from justice.

Tommy Vietor, Iowa press secretary for the Obama campaign, said Johnson had been working for the campaign for about a month as an unpaid intern. Vietor said Secret Service agents learned of the arrest warrant during a criminal background check after Johnson was scheduled to drive in a campaign motorcade.



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