WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a “sad chapter in American history” and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama’s camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

Folks, if you thought the O.J. trials were a circus, you’re in for an awakening.

Teacher Diantha Harris browbeats McCain supporting student, Kathy,in Ashville N.Carolina grade school. The poor girl is obviously distressed over the teacher’s line of questiong and belittling her choice of candidate in front of her school mates.

Teaching > Indoctrination

If you’re put off by this video… wait until you see how deep this valley goes…

Mike Carey, President Of OH Coal Association reacts to Obama’s comments about bankrupting the coal industry.

I don’t think this Hail Mary can knock Obama’s stars out of alignment…

But the truth is, the last 20 months mean nothing until the votes are counted.

“If we had any skinheads in this county I wasn’t aware of it. We hardly know what they are,” said Sam Lewis, who lives across the street from the mother of suspect Daniel Cowart. Cowart, he said, grew up in the comfortable, well-maintained neighborhood and wasn’t known as a troublemaker.

“His mother is a real sweet, nice girl, and this comes as a shock and a surprise,” Lewis said.

Cowart is charged along with Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West Helena, Ark., with planning a killing spree to shoot and decapitate black people and top it all off by attacking Obama. The charges were made public Monday.

Cowart and Schlesselman are charged by federal authorities with possessing an unregistered firearm, conspiring to steal firearms from a federally licensed gun dealer and threatening a candidate for president. They were being held without bond.

Tennessee Police also admit there was ‘no formal assassination plan‘.

McCain fans face the wrath of the Almighty spray-paint warriors yesterday, today the paint cans switch hands (and parties) as a Miami woman’s house is vandalized.

Elsewhere: McCain campaign volunteers attacked, maced over campaign signs.

Elsewhere: Ohio McCain fan shoots at a van full of teens who stole campaign sign.

“She hasn’t really shown any obvious remorse,” Kraus said. “She’s certainly surprised that it snowballed to where it is today.”

“It’s been a huge waste of time and man hours,” said Bryant, adding that police had been working on the story since it broke Thursday…

Watch the perp walk here… notice the black eye seems to have disappeared.

New spot by the Our Country Deserves Better PAC attempts to tie Obama’s beliefs those of the former Weather Underground member, pastor and disgraced mayor.

“Sorry, senator. But if this is the kind of change you want for our America, then you can keep the change.”

The PAC’s have to slow to act this year… With 12 days left, what can they pull off?

WASHINGTON (AP) – The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain’s “Joe the plumber” analogy struck a chord.

I’m not buying this poll just yet… let me dig into the numbers a bit…

OK… here’s a quick breakdown…:

Interview dates: October 16-20, 2008
Interviews: 1,101 adults; 800 likely voters
Margin of error: +/- 3.0 for all adults; +/- 3.5 for likely voters

Among ‘total respondents’ Obama won more handily (48% to 38% for McCain). Initial reaction among ‘likely voters’ had the candidates dead even at 40-40. They both picked up 3 percent when ‘undecideds’ were asked which direction they were ‘leaning’ towards. Then, Obama picked up an additional 1 percent of ‘likely voters’ if Barr and Nader were removed from the ballot.

Oddly enough, 8% chose neither and an additional 5% refused to answer. If those 13% were to be considered ‘likely voters’ as the survey suggests — why would they refuse the question?

“Strong” = respondents who say they will vote for a candidate (A1) and will definitely
vote for that candidate (A3) or have already voted for the candidate (S7c and A1a).

When you plug in the definition above for ’strong’ respondents we’re pretty much dead even again. Obama has a one point lead (37% to McCain’s 36%) among the most fervent supporters.

I’m starting to buy into this now. When the same polling sample was asked whether or not that thought the country was headed in the right direction the answer was on par with other samples.

The survey also has President Bush’s approval rating at around 21% which is dead on.

By the way, Congress is still lower than Bush with a 19% approval rating.

Among the 1,100 people polled, the majority still believe Barack Obama will handle the major issues better than John McCain. Obama leads in national security, health care and the economy but, here’s the kicker, when you go from the 1,100 sample down to the 800 ‘likely voters’ it becomes a much closer battle on the issues. If we are to believe this poll, Barack Obama is much more popular than John McCain but many of his supporters don’t seem to plan on voting.

Another interesting tidbit: The majority of those polled think that Obama and Biden’s attacks on the McCain/Palin ticket are ‘mostly fair’ where as attacks from McCain/Palin are viewed as ‘mostly unfair’. I wonder if this will have an effect on these numbers in the last 12 days of this election.

[Click Here To Check Out The Polling Data For Yourself] Analysis: The poll seems quite fair to me.

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) — Major League Baseball has moved back the scheduled start time of any game 6 of the World Series so Fox can also air the half hour Barack Obama spot on Oct. 29.

A network spokeswoman confirmed the buy and said MLB had agreed to the network’s request for the delay.

Fox now joins CBS and NBC in airing the half hour program, whose content the Obama campaign has declined to describe. The decision means that the Obama campaign is now spending close to $3 million to air the program from 8 to 8:30 p.m. that night on at least three networks. ABC didn’t immediately return a message asking whether it too has now agreed to a buy, a move which would create an unprecedented roadblock of the nation’s biggest commercial networks.

Obama is buying the media. He’s also purchased a slot on DirecTV and Dish Network!

Could all of this last-minute over promotion hurt Barack Obama?

This six-minute gutter brawl between Sean Hannity and Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs that does nothing but lower the public discourse, but is really fun to watch.

I have to say, I think Obama spokesman Gibbs got the best of Hannity. However, his argument that Hannity is responsible for the views of anyone he is interviewing is flawed. Hannity is a news man, however clearly biased he is, it’s his job to interview controversial figures and you could make an argument that to avoid doing so would make him a failure. Barack Obama is not a news man. He is running for the office of President of the United States. He knows damn well his associations with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and radical William Ayers are fair game. His past relationships show that Obama isn’t opposed to surrounding himself with people who (to put it lightly) don’t quite like America. With that in mind, it’s not quite so surprising that wants to powwow with Chavez and Ahmadinejad. He couldn’t change Ayers or Wright, what would make anyone think he can change anyone else? Only 26 days left in this maddening race…

Sing for Change chronicles a recent Sunday afternoon, when 22 children, ages 5-12, gathered to sing original songs in the belief that their singing would lift up our communities for the coming election. Light, hope, courage and love shine through these nonvoting children who believe that their very best contribution to the Obama campaign is to sing.

Sing for Change was a confluence of hard work, good will, and shared vision. Inspired by ideas raised at a grassroots Obama fundraiser, a music teacher, Kathy Sawada, and the children composed and rehearsed the songs in less than two weeks. Several musicians heard of the effort and volunteered to accompany the children. Parents and older siblings designed and provided the T-Shirts and the banner. There’s a first for everything, but rarely do so many firsts come together at once: for the children and their parents, this is their first performance, first video, first banner, and first involvement with grassroots work on a presidential campaign.

There is no difference between these kids and this kid. Still though, quite impressive for Obama to have solidified the toddler voting block. Where are the tiny McCain fans?

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ended three days of suspense on Friday morning and announced that he will leave bailout negotiations in Washington and fly to Oxford, Miss., for the opening presidential debate.

McCain had previously said that he would suspend his campaign until an agreement was reached on the administration’s $700 billion mortgage proposal.

No such agreement has been reached, but Republicans said the standoff was hurting McCain’s campaign, and that he would look terrible if he didn’t attend the nationally televised, eagerly anticipated debate while Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was ready to go onstage.

The debate starts at 9:30 tonight… I’ll have streaming video of the event.

John McCain announced that he will suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to help with bailout negotiations. He urged his opponent Barack Obama to do the same.

The Arizona senator also asked the Presidential Debate Commission to postpone Friday’s scheduled debate with Obama so that he can work on the financial crisis bailout plan now on Capitol Hill.

“America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen,” McCain said.

It’s a political chess move… and it’s a good one.

However a senior Obama campaign official said Obama “intends to debate. The debate is on.”

An Obama campaign official said the Democratic presidential candidate called McCain this morning to suggest a joint statement of principles.

Obama’s not taking the bait, at least not immediately. But can Obama continue the ‘chicken little’ economic drumbeat and not walk the walk? Once again, McCain takes control of the cycle.

What do you say? Was this a smooth move by the McCain campaign or a misstep?

AURORA (MyFOXColorado.com) – An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.”

The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism.

The boy’s father Dann Dalton describes himself as a “proud conservative” who has taken part in some controversial anti-abortion protests. Dalton says the school made a major mistake by suspending his son for wearing the shirt.

“It’s the public school system,” Dalton says. “Let’s be honest, it’s full of liberal loons.”

This guy needs to pull the horses back a bit. The kid’s eleven years old. I have a real issue with parents who force-feed their children religion and politics at such a young age. He should be out playing with his friends, riding bikes, collecting cards and getting into trouble. Indoctrination is unhealthy for young minds and he ends up like this — in a circus at his school.

In a pair of new national ads (which is to say, it’s unclear if swing voters will ever see them), Obama keeps the focus on the economy and McCain tries to change the subject. Obama’s spot quotes from McCain’s “Contingencies” article, while McCain casts Obama as “born of the corrupt Chicago Machine.”

Money Quote: ‘With friends like that, Obama is not ready to lead…’

(CORAL GABLES, FLA.) – Barack Obama’s rally at the University of Miami was briefly interrupted today after a dozen or so protestors began to wave homemade signs.

The group of mostly African American men held signs that read, “Blacks against Obama”, “Jesse Jackson hates Obama”, “Obama for abortions”, “Obama for gay marriage” and “Obama endorsed by the KKK.”

They are said to be part of a Miami based group called “Michael Warns”.

The crowd of over 5,000 people at the event shouted the hecklers down by chanting “Yes we can!”

This time around, Obama doesn’t even address the protesters. I guess he learned a lesson after that last awkward encounter. Folks, look at those signs… the downward spiral continues.

“In the past few weeks, Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled. But for many of you – the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards and diners across America – our troubled economy isn’t news. 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January. Paychecks are flat and home values are falling. It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they’ve probably raised your rates. You’re paying more than ever for health insurance that covers less and less.

“This isn’t just a string of bad luck. The truth is that while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not. That’s why we need change. Real change. This is no ordinary time and it shouldn’t be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track.

“Here’s what I believe we need to do. Reform our tax system to give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs. End the ‘anything goes’ culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your investments and pensions. Fast track a plan for energy ‘made-in-America’ that will free us from our dependence on mid-east oil in 10 years and put millions of Americans to work. Crack down on lobbyists – once and for all — so their back-room deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.

“And yes, bring a responsible end to this war in Iraq so we stop spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours. Doing these things won’t be easy. But we’re Americans. We’ve met tough challenges before. And we can again. I’m Barack Obama. I hope you’ll read my economic plan. I approved this message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won’t solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will.”

The problem that Barack Obama is facing, whether he’s talking about this issue for two minutes or an hour, is that John McCain predicted this entire situation and tried to stop it. Democrats, including Obama, did nothing to help him. Here’s McCain in 2005…

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

So to continue this attack that McCain ‘just doesn’t get it’ seems like a fruitless idea since, in this particular case, it’s Barack Obama who doesn’t seem to get it when ‘it’ is the economy.

An Iraq Veteran has a personal message for Barack Obama

This video, added late last month, has more than 5 million views on YouTube.com.

“Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice President of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she’s qualified to be President of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America and, quite frankly, um, it might have been a better pick than me“

Wow. The Democrats were quick to pin Palin down as the next Eagleton but the folks at Hot Air rightly point at that maybe it’s Biden who is closer to the dropout.